


not this mind and not this heart

by IthacaontheMove



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Epilepsy, Gen, Language, M/M, Panic Attacks, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-06 07:24:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 35,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4213029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IthacaontheMove/pseuds/IthacaontheMove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott, Stiles, Allison, and Lydia make up the entirety of the Beacon Hills Guild. This is, technically, against the rules. But since when have any of them ever cared about rules? Especially when they have to deal with a Nogitsune, hunters gone rogue, and an Alpha Pack. Do other guilds have to put up with this crap?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song "After the Storm" by Mumford and Sons.
> 
> I'm shiny new! This is my first fanfic ever. I hope it's somewhat decent and I hope at least one person gets enjoyment out of it. Thank you!
> 
> As the lovely [CloveeD](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CloveeD/pseuds/CloveeD) suggested, I will give a bit of background to this story's setting. First of all, please note that I will reveal the details of this AU gradually throughout the story, so if something is confusing, it will most likely be explained later on! This is a world where magic is known. The ratio is about half regular humans and half supernatural creatures (this includes mages, werewolves, vampires, etc). Each subsection of supernatural creatures has their own government and way of life, although there is some overlap. Generally, mages have guilds, werewolves have packs, vampires have covens, and banshees have clans. Most regular humans live under the government that exists in reality unless they were born into a supernatural family. I hope this clears things up! 
> 
> P.S. I will be adding character tags as the characters appear in the story.

Stiles’ eyelids are the Benedict Arnolds of eyelids. Cassius ate them for breakfast. Like Wheaties, they’ll help you grow tall and strong. Brutus used them to create the knife to stab Caesar. An eyelid knife, ha. Now there’s something you don’t see every day. Get it, see? His eyelids probably once belonged on Judas’ face.  
Huh, that was something to think about. Reincarnated body parts. You could end up with the leg of George Washington. Or his teeth, ugh. Or his peni-

Letting out a brief groan and quashing that line of thought abruptly, Stiles tries to coax his mind into focusing.

Ever since the Nogitsune had imposed himself upon his brain space as the worst roommate ever, he had been letting his thoughts run wild, pushing his ADHD to the limits in an attempt to annoy the thing to death. He allowed his mind to wander down every tangent it wanted. So far the best result was quiet resignation from his not so welcome guest. The worst was excruciating pain, far more intense than the low level throbs constantly stabbing his insides.

It is the absence of this pain that draws his attention now and allows him a brief moment of concentration. What had happened? One moment he was facing Scott, his not-mouth spouting terrible things, his not-body getting ready to unleash some horrible fate, and then the next everything went black.

If only his stupid eyelids would cooperate. With one final groan and a sound like a busted lawnmower, Stiles summons all of his willpower and finally opens his eyes.  
Only to immediately close them again at the bright stab of sunlight. Well, there go the old eyeballs, he thinks. It was nice knowing you. Gonna have to transfer in some new ones. Call up the old reincarnation office and tell them to put some eyes on hold.

This time, with the wisdom that comes from having stared directly at the sun (you’d think he’d have some practice at that, knowing Scott McCall and all), he slowly inches his eyes open. Nothing but blue sky and a few wisps of clouds.

Stiles turns his head, neck creaking under the strain, and immediately attempts to sit up when he sees Scott, Allison, and Lydia lying on the ground, unconscious. Oh no, he thinks, please no, please, I tried so hard not to let them get hurt, I did everything it said, just please, let them be alright, let them not be dead, oh gods, please.

He pushes his body up with the sheer force of his desperation and begins the slow crawl towards them. Scott is closest. He lays on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, limbs sprawled out as if he had been thrown from a great distance. Stiles observes all this as if floating above them, and it does not feel like his hand that reaches out, fingers shaking as they touch Scott’s neck to check for a pulse. He nearly weeps at the steady thrum beneath his fingertips.

He then proceeds to check Allison and Lydia. Both alive. Thank god. Stiles sticks his head between his knees and begins to count his breaths as the panic sets in, relief making each ripple sharper and more distinct as he chokes for air.

Once the overwhelming panic had subsided and he could breathe about as well as Scott during his asthma days, a crooked jaw enters his significantly less spotty vision, followed by the sharp glint of an arrowhead and a wave of red hair. Stiles looks up to see Scott crouched in front of him like some sort of gargoyle, red eyes flashing and fangs grinding together. A glance to his left shows Allison standing at the ready with her bow and arrow in hand, the deadly calm gaze she acquires when in warrior mode making her face look like it is carved from stone. Lydia stands to his right, a solid presence at his side, her bo staff clutched in her hands and her body radiating utter disdain.

Stiles has always felt safe from the world in this little circle, safe from anything life or the other guilds could throw at them, and he normally cherishes the feeling. But now it feels twisted. Or rather, he feels twisted. Like something inside him has gone cold and dark, forced underground to rot and wither away for the rest of his life while he tries frantically to dig it out. So Stiles allows himself one last moment to bask in the warmth of his little family, and then heaves his body up and away from their circle of protection in one ungainly jerk that nearly sends him stumbling to the ground.

Scott stops snarling at once, locking confused eyes on Stiles, while Allison turns towards him with raised eyebrows, bow now at the ready position by her side, and Lydia just looks at him knowingly, fingers flexing on her staff like she’s ready to start punching him.

“Look,” Stiles starts, tensing as his body feels what must be all the aches and bruises in the world, “I don’t know what happened here, but all of you need to just stay far, far away-”

“It left,” Lydia interjects, huffing in exasperation as she blows a piece of hair out of her face. “So before you start going all self-sacrificial on everyone, you should know that the Nogitsune already left your body.” She says this last part slowly and clearly, as if she believes Stiles is hard of hearing or something.

And maybe he is. “Wait, what?”

Allison cuts in. “As far as we can tell, it somehow duplicated itself. Formed itself into a body that looked like yours and walked off. Then it used that cheapo dark energy wave shit to knock us out before we could stop it. It should’ve killed us when it had the chance.”

Stiles backs away a little at the shark-eating grin on Allison’s face. “But, how? I thought the Nogitsune had to possess someone because it couldn’t take a physical shape of its own.”

“Dude, it was so nasty,” Scott says with a grimace. “Flies came out of your mouth. And then they formed, like, another you. Fly you.”

“It must have fed off enough negative energy to be able to sustain its own form. That must have been its goal all along,” Lydia says, pursing her lips in thought.

“And that explains why it had to possess me for so long. It needed the information about how to control and channel its powers though a human body, not to mention the free buffet it got,” Stiles finishes grimly.

“So…so it’s okay now right? I mean, sure, the thing has a copy of Stiles’ body in fly form, but everyone will just think Stiles finally snapped and went on a rampage or something-”

“What do you mean finally?” Stiles crosses his arms and levels his best glare on Scott to hide the sudden trembling in his soul (had Scott seen right through to the filth lying below the surface all along?).

Scott winces. “Ah, I just meant that now that it’s become fly Stiles we should protect your reputation of law-abiding and all around decent citizen at all costs and…swat it?”

“Nice save, McCall,” Allison mutters under her breath.

“Swat it?! Are you kidding me right now, Scott? And will you stop mentioning the flies?!” Stiles’ voice gains a bit of a hysterical edge. So the thin armor covering his nastiness is safe.

Lydia sighs. “The thing always liked to brag about how it couldn’t be stopped, right? That means there must be a way to stop it. Allison? I know you’ve looked a million times, but isn’t there anything at all in the Bestiary? Maybe I translated something wrong…”

Allison frowns and Stiles snorts quietly. You know things were bad when Lydia starts to doubt her Archaic Latin translations. “I don’t think so, Lyds. There wasn’t even a section on the Nogitsune, just on the negative energies it feeds on. And the only way to truly stop a gathering of those is-”

“Yeah, yeah, the power of love, we’ve heard it all before. Look, this is my problem now, okay? That thing is out there with my body—yes, Scott, made of flies!—and now that it’s out of my head I can fight it. This is my battle, guys. You can just stay out of it. I don’t need your help. And you can stop pretending that everything’s fine, okay, just stop it. Because I know every single terrible thing I did, it liked to show them to me whenever I had even a little bit of hope-”

Stiles’s swallow echoes loudly in the silence that follows. He steels his resolve, reinforces it with the last of his iron will, and hangs the tattered remains of his dignity on that for good measure. It’s better this way. After all, to protect your family is to protect yourself. Stiles does his best to purge that thought from his mind. He no longer has a family. He doesn’t deserve one.

Just like he doesn’t deserve Scott’s heartbroken look or Lydia’s queasy face or Allison’s quiet sympathy. He is a monster. Monsters don’t get sympathy. They don’t get forgiveness. And they certainly don’t get people like Scott or Allison or Lydia. People who put up with him for far too long even before the Nogitsune, and what did someone like Stiles have to offer anyway? He has no brain to mouth filter, he’s a human and a klutz and sarcasm is his first language. He lies and cheats and steals, sometimes without remorse. He killed his mother. In short, he is a waste of existence. An all-around failure who was only put on this earth to make people miserable by destroying everything he touches. Maybe this time he could save them. Maybe this time he could destroy himself first.

As he begins his slow limpwalk back to the guild hall to gather up the supplies he would need to track down the slippery bastard, he hears footsteps behind him. Looking back, his supposedly airtight walls shake as he sees Scott walking hangdog, feet shuffling on the ground. He quickly turns forward, only to nearly run into Allison’s back. The sight of that back, tall and proud with the posture of a soldier, punctures a tiny hole in his iron will. Iron clearly isn’t strong enough, he would have to use adamantium. And he doesn’t even need to see Lydia to feel the strength of her glare turning his scraps of dignity into ash.

But Stiles has to be strong, just this once. He has things he needs at the guild hall, tracking charms and potions and all the assorted things humans could use to try to keep up with the supernatural. Including the patented Stilinski Don’t-Mind-Me Cloak, which makes him way less noticeable, something he generally needs due to his clumsiness. He still sees his dad every week, but he would like something to remember him by. And maybe a chance to say goodbye too. He has no illusions of coming out of this confrontation alive.

Eventually, he can’t take the silence anymore. Silence permits things to fester, causes the boils within him to rupture with pus until his insides finally match the disgusting mess of his soul. The Nogitsune only made his outsides match too. “Could you guys stop following me? I just need to go back to the guild hall and grab a few things. Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Lydia’s frosty voice seems very out of place on this sunny day. “In case it escaped your mind, Stilinski, we live there too. I for one do not recall having to ask your permission to go to my own home. Come on, Allison, let’s walk together.” She hooks her elbow and Allison slips her arm into it. With a dramatic flourish courtesy of Lydia flipping her hair, they flounce ahead.

Even though Stiles knows Scott’s werewolfiness allows him to run faster than a speeding train or whatever, he continues to shuffle along behind him. Stiles uses the rhythm of Scott’s feet as the tempo for his breathing. Left, in, right, out and on and on until it’s all that fills his head.

The shadow of the guild hall falls over Stiles faster than expected. He’s really working the limpwalk today.

The guild hall isn’t even technically a guild hall, just a little house in the middle of the Beacon Hills Preserve that they built from the ground up, using wood from the nemeton that lived there for construction materials (with permission, of course, no one wanted to piss off a nemeton) and pure iron to ward off fae and their ilk in the nails.

Stiles had spent countless sleepless nights poring over books to find any helpful protection sigils or charms. He didn’t have the magic to activate them, none of them did, really, but Lydia had something better. The scream of a banshee was said to contain as much magic as any elemental spell. Sadly, it did not have any power over Nogitsunes. They had tried that. Twice.

Still, even though their guild hall was basically just a hovel out in the boonies, it was home. Stiles once knew every nook and cranny of this place, but as he begins to shove the necessities into his bottomless satchel, the walls seem to close in on him and the darkness creeps in from the corners. He doesn’t belong here anymore. If he ever really did.

He can hear Allison, Lydia, and Scott talking quietly in the kitchen. Probably discussing how best to use his room after he left. They can turn it into a gym. Or a library for Lydia.

As he finishes packing his things, he stands in the doorway and takes one last look around. His bruises ache. His head hurt. He needs to get out before it’s too late.  
Stiles decides he will stop by his dad’s place on the way to…wherever the Nogitsune is hiding. He has to pick up Roscoe anyway. He tries to step lightly, but stealth has never been his strong suit and he stumbles on the last step. His legs feel weak.

The others must hear him because they come streaming from the kitchen, surrounding him like some sort of demented book club.

Their dirty faces look anguished under the fading daylight. It will hurt them a little, the way all holes did. But they’ll be okay. Scott is the heart, Allison the soul, Lydia the brain.  
They don’t need a cancerous tumor ruining their perfect body.

So he brushes past them without a word. Tumors can’t speak. Monsters can’t reason. And he will become whatever he needs to be in order to make this right.

* * *

Allison has to resist the urge to grab her bow and show Stiles exactly how she earned all those medals (that stupid, suicidal _idiot_ ). But force isn’t always the answer. Even now, she could hear her mother, “Might can be right, but a good plan trumps brute strength any day, especially when dealing with the supernatural. That’s your problem, sweetie. You’ve got no head for tactics.”

Fat load of good tactics did her mother. She had killed herself after being bitten by a rogue Alpha hellbent on expanding his pack. Apparently, that was her idea of a good plan. Allison’s maybe still a little bitter about it.

She turns to Scott and Lydia. “What now?” There is no way she is just going to let Stiles leave. He will definitely get himself killed. The Nogitsune is no joke. And Stiles is a trouble magnet. Though it isn’t his fault. Probably. Except, knowing Stiles, he had probably pissed off a really powerful entity in a past life. With no regrets.

“Obviously, we go after him.” Everything is so simple for Scott. He just does what feels right. That’s one of the things she loves about him. They are such opposites, she hadn’t thought their relationship would work out, honestly. She considers herself a more pragmatic, ruthless type. There is no right or wrong in her eyes. Only action and inaction. One keeps you safe and the other gets people killed.

Oh, she presented a sweet, charming front to outsiders. There was a time only her father knew the real truth about her, the depths of darkness threatening to swallow her whole.

When Allison was a little girl, her parents had gone on a second honeymoon to Costa Rica, leaving her with her grandfather, Gerard. She had met him before, of course; the Argent matriarchs never missed a chance to meet and discuss the future of the clan. Attendance was required by all. Gerard had seemed so cold, distant. A relative you saw only twice a year and then promptly forgot about until he appeared in your nightmares, fingers leaving icy tendrils on your heart as he ripped it out of your chest.

He had sat her on his lap and told her tales of the supernatural running havoc all over the earth, enslaving humans and eating the flesh of their babies, and the brave warriors who fought against them. He said it all so nonchalantly, as if this was a story his grandfather had told him when he was a little boy.

“ _Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent_ ,” he said with a small, secretive smile on his face. “We hunt those who hunt us.” Allison felt as if the words had rolled off his tongue and imprinted themselves straight onto her soul. This unsettled her so badly, she bit him on the arm and ran for her room, locking the door and sliding under the bed.

She didn’t come out until her Aunt Kate agreed to watch her instead.

Her dad was furious when he found out, the thick veins in his forehead and neck turning purple as he shouted at Gerard. If she put her ear right up against the cold metal, Allison could hear everything through the vents.

“Jesus Christ, dad, Allison’s only seven! She isn’t a soldier in your twisted little war!”

“ _My_ war? This concerns all of humanity, Christopher. Therefore it concerns your daughter, too. Don’t you think she should know the kind of world she lives in?”

“You mean the kind of world where her grandfather tells her lies so he can turn her into some kind of killing machine? Allison is not a tool! She is a little girl who likes hair ribbons and gymnastics! I will teach her how to survive in this world, but it will not be through intimidation and scare tactics. At the rate you’re going, it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let you near her again!”

“You think you can stop me from-”

“Dad, maybe you should listen to Chris. Allison’s not ready to know about her role in the clan just yet. She’ll let us know when she’s ready to take the next step.” Allison recognized Aunt Kate’s voice floating through the vent now.

She liked her Aunt Kate. Kate took Allison swimming and horseback riding and taught her how to hold a bow and arrow (A secret, she whispered into Allison’s ear after she fixed her stance and grip. Don’t tell your dad).

“Please leave now. Both of you.” Her mother spoke now, her voice clipped and precise and meant to be obeyed.

Allison heard the slamming of the door and the low muttering of her parents. They shuffled around downstairs for a time before coming up to check on her. She jumped into bed and made sure to imitate the deep breathing of true sleep. She knew all the tricks by now.

While she lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling, she once again thought of those words. “We hunt those who hunt us.” What did that mean? Who was hunting them? And why did they have to hunt back? They should all just shake hands like her teacher Mrs. Fuller made them do when they got into a fight at school.

As time went on, Allison gained more and more clues about her family’s strange hobbies. When she confronted him about the numerous guns lying around the house, her dad claimed to be an arms dealer. And the strange people loitering around the house? Clients. Allison didn’t know why clients had to be around to buy guns at three in the morning when she went to get a glass of water, but she was fast becoming used to not asking questions. It’s not like anyone would give her a straight answer.

As a result of her dad’s profession, Allison had learned gun safety at a very young age. She was a real crack shot. A bow and arrow was her preferred weapon of choice, however. The fact that she had a weapon of choice at the ripe old age of ten did not strike her as normal behavior.

During her eighth grade year, they moved for the fourth time in six months. They were learning algebra at her new school. Allison hadn’t even learned long division properly yet. She was held back a year. She didn’t talk to her parents for two weeks afterwards.

Oh, they tried to be supportive. After every move, her mom would take her on long walks to get to know the town better, pointing out landmarks here and there. They would stop at every ice cream shop within a 20 mile radius to taste each cherry vanilla ice cream cone and see which one was best. Sometimes, when her mom wasn’t busy teaching courses at the local college, she and Allison would paint each other’s nails and watch old movies.

Her dad would sign her up for gymnastics and archery and swimming in every town they lived in. She would look up during a meet or a competition and see him standing next to her mom, a proud grin on his face, his broad hands cupping his mouth to cheer. His voice would be hoarse for days afterwards.

But something lurked underneath every happy encounter, something old and primal which smelled of blood and death.

Allison liked to think she had many moments of intelligence, despite the curse of algebra hovering over her head. But sometimes we don’t want to know things even if we think we do, and our brains refuse to accept the truth. So despite the guns and the moving and the insistence on learning how to defend herself, she did not truly connect the dots until it was almost too late.

When Allison was 15, they moved to Beacon Hills. According to Google, Beacon Hills was a small town smack in the middle of Airlie County. According to her mom, it was a hotbed of supernatural activity. The Hale Pack originated there, and there was a well-circulated rumor concerning a banshee.

Allison didn’t much care about the supernatural elements of any of the towns they lived in. It was relatively common for there to mages and even the occasional werewolf at her school. She was mostly too busy trying to keep up with the new coursework than to worry about the supernatural at all.

Then she met Lydia and Scott and Stiles and everything descended into a whirlwind of chaos.

Her family did not come to Beacon Hills simply for the scenery. They came because they had heard tales of a rogue Alpha werewolf tearing through the outskirts of the town. Because apparently her family was a hunter clan. As in they hunted supernatural things. Allison felt like such a fool for not seeing it sooner.

Being chased throughout the town by an Alpha werewolf with three teenagers (one a werewolf and another the aforementioned banshee) she barely knew on her sixteenth birthday (but she felt like she knew them, she felt their souls resonate with hers in a way that left her breathless with possibility) was hardly her idea of a party, yet here they were, sprinting through the back alleys and dark roadways in the middle of the night.

Scott, lagging behind to keep the werewolf off their tail, suddenly went down with a muffled shout. His cry of pain, high and keening, stayed with Allison through many years after that as the werewolf scraped its claws into his flesh, spraying blood everywhere.

Stiles, his eyes alight with mad fury, tried to beat the thing with his backpack, yelling obscenities all the while, but the werewolf, lips pulled back in a facsimile of a smile, simply crouched and prepared to spring-

BAM! Lydia had picked up a trashcan lid and thrown it directly at the werewolf’s face. Good aim, Allison thought dazedly, before she snapped out of it and took her minibow and daggers out of her satchel, tossing one to Stiles and one to Lydia before cocking her bow. Taking advantage of the werewolf’s momentary weakness, they shielded Scott from its feral gaze. The werewolf, obviously unused to such coordinated attacks from weak humans and one banshee, glanced at their weapons glinting in the moonlight before letting out a howl and slinking away into the darkness.

And Allison, covered in Scott’s blood and trembling with adrenaline, finally felt like she belonged.

“The problem, of course, is actually stopping the thing. We have no clue how to go about doing that. We can’t go off half-cocked without some kind of plan.” Lydia’s voice drags Allison out of her reverie. Right, she has to focus. Getting Stiles back is the goal right now.

“But how can we do that?” Allison asks, her brow furrowing as she tries to think of tactical options. Stiles would have already come up with a plan m, she thinks sullenly.

Lydia smirks as if she had been waiting for Allison to ask. “Stiles, of course.”

“Um, Stiles isn’t here. Unless you guys can communicate telepathically now? Can banshees do that?” Scott looks hopeful at the idea.

“Don’t be ridiculous, McCall,” Lydia says imperiously. “The bastard was in Stiles’ head for almost four months. The information transfer must have worked both ways. Therefore, Stiles knows how to stop the Nogitsune. We just have to figure out where he would hide that information. And since we know Stiles, we have a distinct advantage.”

“So we just have to figure out where Stiles would hide his secret stash of information.” Scott looks pleased with himself for figuring it out. Allison pats him on the arm in congratulations.

“Exactly,” Lydia says. “Let’s get to work.”

Allison rolls up her sleeves, thinks of Stiles and the shadows under his eyes and the way he looked at them before he left, and begins the search.

* * *

 

Listening to the soothing beats of jazz music, Sheriff Stilinski pulls the last file towards him and lets out a sigh. He tries not to resent the beauty of the sunset, but the problem with Beacon Hills is that it is too green and too alive. It’s like the world is mocking him for not being happy in the face of such beauty. No, it’s like the world is indifferent to the yawning tide of his grief. That’s worse, somehow.

Sheriff Stilinski’s wife, Claudia, had been an artist. She painted portraits. He could still hear her voice in his head at times, complaining about the pungent smell of magical paint. “It smells like horse shit,” she would say, giving him her best innocent smile. Right before she tried to smear some in his face.

He misses her every minute of every day, with each breath and each heartbeat he takes. Every morning when he gets up, there is a split second moment of peace before he remembers that she’s dead and he has to remind himself to get up and get moving. He has to remind himself he still has Stiles and Stiles needs him.

He has to remind himself not to pick up the whiskey bottle.

Sometimes, on his worst days, he forces himself to relive every memory he has of her, the little snort she would let slip at something funny, the way she would dry his tears when he definitely did not cry at _The Lion King_. There was just something in his eyes, dammit! The harness she wore to carry around baby Stiles getting caught in her hair when she tried to take it off.

But today is not one of his worst days, so he reads through the file concerning the charges a group of earth mages filed against the humans who accidentally trespassed on their property. He snorts. Mages are so touchy about their things. Some days he cannot believe the stupidity of the general population, humans and mages alike.

Signing off on the report, the sheriff makes a mental note to call Chris and ask him to find a mediator in this case so the mages don’t take out their rage on passing humans. It had happened before. It took him four weeks to fill out all the paperwork from that little incident. He never looked at trees the same way again.

If he were the type of person to look on the bright side (which he was not), he would consider his strange friendship with Chris, Melissa, and Natalie to be the only good thing to come from Claudia’s death. Melissa once jokingly referred to them as the “single parents club.” When Chris heard that he suggested their motto should be “Two by death, two by divorce.” The guy had a thing for mottos. And a morbid sense of humor.

Scott and Stiles were always close, and therefore the sheriff knew Melissa quite well. When Chris’ family came to town and the whole Alpha werewolf fiasco happened (he was still sorting through the paperwork for that one), somehow Allison and Lydia joined Scott and Stiles’ little group. Heaven forbid the sheriff ever understands the minds of teenagers.

They all met for the first time at the annual McCall BBQ Extravaganza (patented by Stiles Stilinski circa 2003). He and Stiles always got there early to help with the food and setup because Melissa had a heart of gold and was constantly inviting random people to come eat food and be merry. Stiles was in the kitchen making his “special sauce” (patented by Stiles Stilinski circa 2009) and the sheriff was hanging up streamers in the living room when the doorbell rang. Due to the _mi casa es tu casa_ rule he and Melissa established after Stiles broke into her house for the third time, he went to answer it.

The Martins and the Argents stood there, having arrived at the same time. Inviting them in, the sheriff ignored Ms. Martin’s—“call me Natalie, hon”—blatant up and down glance and appreciative smile and tried not to laugh when her daughter—“it’s nice to officially meet you, Sheriff Stilinski, I’m Lydia”—surreptitiously rolled her eyes while subtly trying to dig her elbow into her mom’s side. Dancing away nimbly, Natalie made her way into the kitchen to deposit her pasta salad—“Store bought, don’t worry"—leaving the sheriff with Lydia and the Argents.

After fielding more introductions, the sheriff shooed the two girls outside to set up the tables and help Melissa man the grill (rule #35 of the Stilinski-McCall household: do not allow Stiles or Scott near anything to do with flames, flammable objects, or blowtorches). The Argent scion attempted to muster up a smile, but it stalled out halfway there and became somewhat of a pained grimace instead. “I thought the day could use some libations,” he muttered, and thrust a wine bottle into the sheriff’s hands.

As the party got under way, the adults huddled around the buffet table like a lake in a desert. The sheriff gave his fellow parents a cursory glance and what he saw surprised him.

Natalie talked excitedly to Melissa, giving her tips on how to handle lovestruck teenagers, yet there was a tightness around her mouth that belied an inner tension not present in the lightness of her voice or her animated gestures. The sheriff was used to the exhausted edge he saw in Melissa, the dimness in her eyes and her dull reactions to the loud shrieks and laughter coming from the teenager side of the party.

But it was Chris who really caught the sheriff’s attention. Something about the way he held himself so stiffly, as if one wrong gust of wind would bowl him over, sat heavy on the sheriff’s shoulders. Something about the way Chris looked out into the distance, eyes flashing and face shadowed with darkness, only to snap out of it so suddenly the sheriff wondered if he had seen anything at all, caused a pang of recognition deep in his belly.

He turned these observations over and over again in his head over the course of the night, and he blamed that for what happened next. As everyone thanked Melissa for a good time and gathered up their things, he pulled Melissa, Natalie, and Chris aside and invited them out for drinks sometime.

The surprise on their face would have been comical if the sheriff wasn’t sure that very same surprise lay bare on his own face.

Predictably, Melissa rallied first. “I would love to. What a great idea!”

She turned imploring eyes on Natalie, who caved almost immediately. She would have to work harder to build up her resistance. The sheriff was proud to note that he could last almost 36.89 seconds against that look before he gave in. Stiles, after handing the stopwatch over to his dad under Melissa’s bemused stare, had lasted 1.12 minutes.

The sheriff could see the beginnings of refusal on Chris’ face, so he pulled out his trump card. “I’m pretty stumped on a case, actually. Could use your help if you’re interested.”  
Chris had indeed looked interested. When his eyes brightened a bit and he stood a little straighter, he looked more alive than he had all evening.

They never ended up discussing that case. Instead, they all got spectacularly drunk and reminisced about their significant others, which is when Chris came up with the motto and Melissa came up with the name. They depressed the other patrons so much, the bartender kicked them out before closing time. They ended up on a park bench, giggling like schoolgirls, until they sobered up enough to make their collective ways home (via cab, he was still the sheriff even when drunk).

He had never been the type to have do-or-die friends. That was more Claudia’s forte. She gave so much of herself so easily people wanted to do the same in return. He would never begrudge his wife her happiness, but sometimes her presence overshadowed his to the point where he was able to easily fade into the background. He had been on his own since he started at the police academy; he thought he could handle it.

So this sudden influx of camaraderie unsettled him a bit. He and Melissa were close, but more from Stiles’ influence more than his own. The sheriff was helpless against the tides Stiles pulled him into. It was all he could do to go along.

And to have three people there at his back, asking about his day and his health and his opinions, when before he only had Stiles to do that, well, the sheriff wasn’t ashamed to admit he got overwhelmed. He stuck it out though, knowing from experience how some things took getting used to. Sure enough, a few months later found him expecting it, reveling in it even. Always, he made sure to clear a place for gratitude in his heart as a reminder not to take it for granted.

He still holds that part of his heart open now, a strong bridge which eases the holes already there.

Beacon Hills is a hub of supernatural activity every day (something about a nemeton, Chris had told him once, but the sheriff did not know and did not care to know what a nemeton was), so when Stiles comes bursting through his door, out of long practice his eyes immediately begin to scan for injuries, picking up on the limp and the ginger way Stiles is holding his ribs.

“Alright, what happened now?” The sheriff demands, striding over to Stiles and beginning a series of rapid-style questions, interrogation style. “What or who did you piss off this time? Do they have teeth or claws? Are they going to file charges? Or does this have to do with whatever you’ve been hiding from me for the last four months?”

Stiles startles at that, eyes wide and mouth gaping. “What? You knew about that?”

“So there is something. Of course I knew about it. You barely came home at all and when you did, you were like a completely different person.”

Stiles winces, hissing when the movement tugs at his obvious wounds. “I’m fine, dad, me and the guild were just dealing with some wonky supernatural stuff, you know how it goes. But everything’s fine now.”

The sheriff crosses his arms. His jaw clenches when he hears his son lie to him again. That’s all Stiles has been doing lately. He thought they had gotten over that hurdle after Stiles tried to keep Scott’s bite from him. Then when he lied about forming the guild. As if his own father, a trained officer of the law, wouldn’t notice something amiss.

He blames himself. Stiles, for whatever reason, doesn’t feel he can trust his dad with anything. Or rather, Stiles feels he cannot trust him with anything that might put him in danger.

Running his hand across his face, the sheriff suddenly feels all the weight of his forty-two years bearing down on him. “Look, kid, at least let me clean you up if you can’t be honest with me.”

He turns away before he can see the stricken look he knows is on Stiles’ face. He retrieves the first-aid kit and begins the arduous process of cleaning up his teenage son.  
Stiles had been…a difficult child. He would cry and scream and throw things and the only thing that would calm him down were car rides. Every night before they put him to sleep, he or Claudia would strap Stiles in to his car seat and drive all over Beacon Hills for an hour. He would eventually fall asleep and his parents could catch a couple hours of shut-eye before he would begin screaming again.

As Stiles got older, he could never stay still. He got so many scrapes and bruises and boo-boos from his escapades, they must have personally caused the bandage and ointment stocks to rise.

They would have to double-team Stiles on injuries. One of them to hold him still and the other one to apply bandaids and kisses and reassurance.

As he wraps Stiles’ ribs, he finds himself glancing up, looking for Claudia’s familiar face smiling down at their son. When it comes to Stiles, the sheriff often finds himself reaching for something that’s no longer there.

He finishes the wrapping and begins to probe Stiles’ legs for breaks, taking note of every wince and grimace that crosses Stiles’ face. “Are you going to tell me anything? Or do I have to call up Scott and ask him?”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Stiles’ eyes harden and his face closes off. “Call him if you want. I just wanted to see you before I leave.”

The sheriff feels his heart start to pound. “Leave where?”

He knows Stiles is going to lie before he does it, which is pretty impressive considering Stiles eliminated all of his tells ages ago. “I have some business to take care of over in Lupa County. Shouldn’t take too long.”

Getting answers from Stiles can be like pulling teeth. Now he’s just being purposely vague. “What kind of business? The others going with you?”

Although the magical world deemed Stiles an adult when he turned seventeen (heaven help them all), he’s still the sheriff’s baby boy.

Stiles shrugs. “There might be some packs open to pursuing an alliance with a werewolf-headed guild up there. Scott’s coming. I don’t know about Lydia and Allison. They might take a detour to Lydia’s grandmother’s place to scavenge up some more books.”

It’s times like this when the sheriff regrets his lack of knowledge of the supernatural. He’s sure the first part is true, Stiles had mentioned as much a few months ago, but he’s not sure about the last part.

“Hey,” the sheriff says gently, turning Stiles’ face toward him. Stiles looks surprised, and the sheriff’s heart constricts. How long had it been since he told Stiles he loved him? “I can come with you, you know. I’ll take a couple days off. A little Stilinski family bonding time sounds real good. I’ll even let you drive Roscoe, as long as I can sit in the back with a supply of tranquilizers.”

Stiles’ lips quirk up at the corners. “I’m not that bad a driver dad, god.” But there’s something about his face, some expression gone too quick for the sheriff to make out, that sends spikes of panic through his stomach. “And you know the packs don’t like outsiders. We’re lucky enough to be getting a meeting as it is.”

The sheriff cannot shake the alarm sliding over him like a tidal wave. Stiles must see it building on his face because he chooses that moment to slam himself into the sheriff’s arms, just like when he was a kid and made his dad his personal bowling pin. “I love you, dad.” Stiles’ voice is muffled into his shirt, so he almost doesn’t catch it.

“Love you too, kiddo.” The sheriff rubs his hands up and down Stiles’ back, can feel him relaxing into his touch, absorbing it.

Finally, Stiles pulls away. “I’d better get going. Try not to work too hard while I’m gone. I’ve got Ms. Martin monitoring snack duty so you better not try to sneak anything unhealthy. I can sniff it out in seconds, you know, and my minions are well trained.”

“Please don’t call Natalie your minion. And behave while you’re out there. Don’t do anything Scott wouldn’t do.” Stiles’ smile is a brittle thing, stretching out over his face like that.

“See ya, dad.”

“Goodbye, son.”

As he shuts the door behind him, the sheriff immediately pulls out his cellphone to call Chris and assemble the club. He’s let Stiles down enough already. It’s time for the parents to kick some ass now.

* * *

 

Lydia groans in frustration as they comb through Stiles’ things for the third time. After finding a piece of moldy bread, a half-eaten bag of Cheetos and some Red Bulls with dead gnats swirling around the inside, she has had quite enough of her glimpse into the teenage boy’s psyche, thank you very much.

From the increasingly frantic motions coming from Scott’s side of the room, he isn’t having any luck either. Allison walks in from her search in the living room, shaking her head at Lydia’s questioning eyebrow.

Stiles always has to make things difficult.

Lydia goes to the bathroom to wash her hands. It is possible Stiles hid something at the sheriff’s house, but he probably wouldn’t want to risk his dad finding it. Stilinskis are notorious snoops.

So she’s going to have to do this the hard way. Letting out a sigh, she glances at her reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. Her eyes are a bit red at the corners from crying and she still has the shadow of a bruise on her face from when they faced the Nogitsune earlier.

They have to end this quickly, if not for Stiles’ sake than for the sake of her complexion. Her skin can stay blotchy for days.

And ending this quickly means taking a different approach. If Stiles didn’t hide the information for defeating the Nogitsune in the guild hall, where would he keep it? He would need to get it out of his head as swiftly as possible or risk the Nogitsune finding out. A way to extract his memories, then. Or possibly a listening talisman of some sort. Lydia has heard of certain runes you could transcribe on any piece of material which could act as a recording device of sorts. It’s what magical folk use to record their wills.

But extracting memories and transcribing runes require magic, which Stiles doesn’t have. What Stiles does have is three very frustrated family members who he should have trusted—

Lydia takes a deep breath to calm herself. When that doesn’t work, she waves a hand over the mirror and scries the realm of the dead. Seeing the shadows and shades of people  
long past has always calmed her. Basically, seeing dead people is her way of coping. Allison likes to joke about her banshee genes manifesting themselves in strange ways, like Lydia's penchant for death metal.

This isn’t about trust. Stiles is trying to protect them like he always does. He wouldn’t want them to be involved unless they absolutely had to be. Which means if he did plan to involve them eventually, there would be a failsafe. Something he did or said that he’s not counting on being found until later.

Realization sweeps through her so fast it leaves her dizzy. Lydia runs out of the bathroom, nearly crashing into Scott when she dashes into the bedroom. Allison and Scott both straighten. They must recognize the look on her face. “We’ve been looking at this all wrong. Stiles wouldn’t hide the way to kill the Nogitsune where just anyone could find it. He would hide it someplace he trusts absolutely no one would ever find it.”

“Yeah, we got that Lyds. That’s why we’ve been searching everywhere.” Scott has on his confused puppy expression. It’s his best look.

“Don’t you see? He hid it in the place he trusts most. In the people he loves most.”

“Stiles hid the secret…inside us?” Scott squeaks, face creasing in revulsion.

“Oh!” Allison’s eyes light up in comprehension. “He already told us, right?”

Lydia nods, proud at her best friend. “Yes, he must’ve told us somehow and we never realized it. We need to think back to times when the Nogitsune was dormant and Stiles was in control.”

Scott grimaces and Lydia feels a twinge of sympathy. She doesn’t like thinking about Stiles during those times either. “But he just slept most of the time, remember? He said it took too much energy trying to hold the thing back.”

“There was one time, right before the Nogitsune was able to replicate itself. He was conscious for at least a couple of minutes. I can’t quite remember what Stiles said though. The Nogitsune was ranting and then it stole all the pain Scott had collected by stabbing him through the chest with its hand. Stiles woke up and put a stop to it, but there was so much blood.” Lydia pats Allison on the shoulder as she shudders at the memory.

Lydia can still remember Allison’s quiet gasp when the Nogitsune had impaled Scott. Lydia could practically hear Stiles’ screams in her head as Scott fell to the ground after the Nogitsune had absorbed his pain. Stiles hadn’t been able to stop it this time, and the knowledge lay heavy in his eyes.

But that isn’t the memory they need. She casts her mind back farther, focusing on Stiles’ face as he came to, the way his eyes couldn’t quite meet hers, the way tremors had raced across his whole body as if he had been doused in ice water. She can almost see it now, his lips moving as he concentrated on getting the words out before the Nogitsune took over again. She had leaned forward, trying to make out what he was saying.

“I can…magic…left remnants…runes…transfer…”

Wow, Stiles makes it really obvious for her and it still takes her this long to figure out?

“That’s it!” Lydia shouts, startling Allison and Scott who were also trying to think back to that moment. “Stiles was trying to say that the Nogitsune had left remnants of rune magic behind when it fed on his memories of being human! The information transfer worked both ways!”

“I knew you would figure it out,” Allison says with a beaming smile. Scott nods enthusiastically beside her.

Lydia feels her heart swell with warmth at their confidence in her. She knows how lucky she is to have this family of people, especially ones just as messed up as her. And no one touches her family. Not even some weird fox spirit whose only hobbies seem to be riddles and emotional vampirism.

Now all they had to do was find the rune.

So basically, they were back to sifting through Stiles’ things again, although since they actually knew what to look for, the mood was considerably lighter.

Scott’s searching through the laundry hamper when she hears a quiet “Oh.” She and Allison turn to see a soft smile on Scott’s face as he looks down at a dirty t-shirt with a picture of a dinner roll on it and “Wanna roll?” printed underneath in big block lettering. Lydia resists the urge to roll her eyes. That would be giving in to the power of Stiles’ lame shirts.

“Something you want to share there, Scott?” Allison asks.

Scott’s hands tighten on the shirt. “This one time when me and Stiles were in 8th grade we had a big fight because I didn’t want him to touch my limited edition Batman figurine my mom got me for my birthday. And Stiles yelled really loud in the hallway about how if I didn’t want to share I should stick it in my pants because no one else would ever look there and then stomped off. I didn’t talk to him for almost four hours after that. It was traumatizing.”

God, these two are ridiculous. “All this tells us is that you two can’t even fight properly. Sometimes you guys disgust me.”

“No, I mean it became a running joke between us that if we ever needed to hide something, we should stick it in my pants…” Scott trails off here, then takes off running down the hallway into his bedroom.

“Are you serious?” Lydia all but shrieks. “The key to defeating the Nogitsune is hidden in your _pants_? Why do I put up with you two again?”

Allison chuckles and Lydia’s shoulders unintentionally relax. “Now, now. They do have some useful qualities, I’m sure.”

“Ah-ha!” Comes a shout from the bedroom, and Scott comes out a moment later with his Batman figurine clenched in his raised hand.

“So it wasn’t in the pants at all, it was on the figurine?” Lydia seriously needs to get new friends. Who cares about family and love and all that rot when you can preserve your sanity instead?

“Duh,” Scott intones idly as if it should be obvious. His expression says she’s crazy to think otherwise.

“Who would notice if I killed him right now? I mean, Stiles would be upset but we could always find him a new Scott. And I can find Allison another boyfriend easily. One who doesn’t so readily inspire the urge to commit murder.” Allison snorts in restrained laughter as Lydia mutters under her breath.

Lydia snatches the figurine from Scott and checks it over for runes. “Hey, be careful! That’s limited edition, you know!”

She looks at him flatly. “Stiles already marked it up. I think it’s safe to say its value has diminished greatly without any input on my part.”

“Hey, you’re right. Dammit, Stiles! I knew yelling at me in the hallway wasn’t enough. Figures he would wait four whole years to get his revenge,” Scott grumbles.

There, scratched over Batman’s left pec is a small listening rune, made using the combined symbols for “to listen” and “to protect.” She glances over at Scott and Allison. “You ready?”

They both nod and cover their ears. Lydia closes her eyes and extends her senses. Someone’s always dying somewhere. She zeroes in on the man in 4365 Maplewood Dr. having a heart attack almost immediately. She opens her mouth and screams, letting the banshee magic flow through her body and onto Batman’s chest.

The rune lights up in activation and at once Stiles’ voice fills the room, diamond-edged and hoarse but comforting all the same. “Okay, guys, I don’t have much time. Congrats on finding this, by the way. So the Nogitsune is basically Voldemort. The only thing he’s afraid of is death. It said that it can’t be killed, but that’s not true. It turns out the Bestiary was right. The only way to stop it is with an act of pure sacrifice which will wipe out its negative energy, leaving it vulnerable to being killed, but only for an instant. As you’ve probably figured out by now, I’m taking the fall for this one. I’m sorry it had to be this way, you guys. Oh shit, it’s waking up. I have to go. Batman out.”

The silence is deafening in the absence of Stiles’ declaration.

Only to be broken by Scott’s thin, plaintive wail and Allison’s wavering voice, “H-He planned this? He planned on dying all along?”

Lydia scoffs harshly, “Of course he did, the great idiot. He probably thought he’d be doing us a favor. You know how dismal his self-esteem was even before this thrice-damned fox spirit.”

Allison sniffs, nodding, while Scott’s face resembles a stormcloud. “Stiles would never-”

“It doesn’t matter what Stiles would never do. The point is that he’s gone and done it anyway. Which means we need to help him whether he likes it or not. I spent too long hauling his scrawny ass out of danger for him to risk it now.” Lydia refuses to indulge Scott in his delusions. If he can’t see what’s right in front of his face, that’s not her problem. Although for Stiles’ sake she hopes he pulls his act together. Or else she will have to make him.

Allison perks up. It must have been killing her to stay in one place for so long while her friend was in danger. Lydia knows how much loathes inaction. “Lydia’s right, Scott. Let’s find the Nogitsune and stop Stiles. I’m sure between the four of us we can muster up enough pure sacrifice the sun will shine out its ass.”

The levity eases the lines of Scott’s furrowed brow. “Okay, let’s go.” And with that, they grab their supplies and set off to the north, where Stiles was headed last. “Stiles would’ve erased his scent so we can’t track him that way. Do you think your dad can track him through the hunter’s network? They might have heard about any unusual disturbances.”  
Allison shakes her head. “The Nogitsune’s too smart for that. It won’t risk an open confrontation with hunters yet.”

“I have a better idea,” Lydia interjects. “So remember when I got lost in the realm of the dead?”

Allison scoffs. “Who wouldn’t remember that? It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. You wouldn’t wake up no matter what we did.”

Lydia favors her with her blandest look. “Stiles stayed up for three days straight researching a way to get me out. He found out I needed a tether to this world to keep me in place if I was going to commune with the realm of the dead.”

“Getting that message to you was a nightmare in a half. We had to capture a will-o'-the-wisp and I almost drowned twice,” Scott remarks faux casually.  
“But what I never told him or anyone else was what I used as a tether.” Lydia inhales deeply. “I used the bonds we shared.”

Scott wrinkles his nose. “You mean the pack bonds? I thought only werewolves could feel those.”

“I thought so too. But I was searching for a tether and I found them deep inside. They’re like little cords woven out of golden light. You each have one, and each one is different.”

Allison sighs wistfully. “I wish I could feel them.”

“So what do pack bonds have to do with finding Stiles?”

“The path of the bond should lead right to Stiles. All I have to do it feel along it like a rope. Honestly, Scott, even with Stiles, I’m amazed you survived as a werewolf this long.”

“I know some werewolf things. I didn’t want to read the list of bullet points Stiles gave me,” Scott says petulantly.

Lydia has nothing to say in response to that. Instead, she focuses on her mindscape, using the patented technique Stiles had taught her (“You should try counting numbers,” he said one night when neither of them could sleep. “I do it all the time to help my ADHD.” At first she had tried reciting the numbers of Pi. When that got too boring, she moved on to prime numbers and then to Mersenne numbers). Eventually, she can feel the bonds, finding Stiles’ easily. It thrums constantly with energy, much more than Allison’s quiet hum or Scott’s occasional twang, and thorns cover the entire length, courtesy of the Nogitsune.

She tugs on it, ignoring the pain in her mind, and allows it to blossom in her hands. Opening her eyes, she feels Stiles like a beacon.

She sighs. “We’re going the wrong way.”

They make a complete 180 and start again.

Lydia leads the way, and if her footsteps match the pulse beating in her head, no one needs to know but her.

* * *

 

Scott wonders at the similarities between banshees and werewolves as he and Allison follow Lydia, he at her left and Allison at her right. Normally, Stiles would be at the rear, spouting complaints and grumbling about walking through “these godforsaken woods, Scott, Jesus, couldn’t you like laser vision just a few of these roots? For me?” “I’m not Superman, Stiles.”

God, he misses Stiles so much it hurts.

And what kind of friend is he, not noticing anything was wrong with Stiles until the Nogitsune had sunk its nasty teeth into his brother in all but blood.

So much for being a better person. He had thought after his ascendance to True Alpha being good and kind and heroic would come more naturally to him. Instead, his slacking off had allowed Stiles to fall under the influence of an evil spirit.

This was something no one knew about Scott. Oh, maybe Stiles had guessed, but he still had complete faith in Scott so he must not have realized the true extent of it. Scott had to work at being a hero. It was not something that came naturally to him. His first instinct, even now that he took the form of a predator rather than prey, was always to run first, figure it out later. Live another day.

So when his tight-knit little pack turned to him for answers or to be their conscience, he had to resist the urge to run screaming in the other direction.

When Scott had first been bitten by the Alpha, he hadn’t even known what it was. He had just been wandering around the woods with Stiles, who wanted to pick some flowers that only bloomed in the dead of night for his experimental potion he was creating to help Scott get rid of his asthma. Neither humans nor magic had found a cure for it, although Stiles had joked he could always go the werewolf or vampire route.

He was blindsided when a huge furry creature crashed into him. He felt white-hot pain in his side and then Stiles was there, throwing fistfuls of the wolfsbane he had gathered (“You can never be too careful, Scott. One of these days, I might have to use these babies.”) at the thing. It howled in pain, twisting its lips into a hideous snarl before running off into the woods.

“Scott, hey Scott buddy, you with me?” Stiles was patting him down, stopping when he hit Scott’s side and heard his sharp inhale. “Oh, shit.”

“Wha-What was that thing?” Scott peeled back his shirt to look at the wound, hissing when it stuck to the bloody gash.

“That would be a werewolf,” Stiles said grimly. Scott could practically feel the annoyance radiating off of him, even though his eyes never left the surrounding woods.

“Well, I’m sorry, god. Of course I would have paid more attention in the Supernatural Creatures class if I had known that I would one day be bitten by a werewolf!” Scott ran his hands through his hair in frustration, then scowled when he remembered his bloody hands.

Seemingly satisfied with his perusal of the surrounding area, Stiles raised an eyebrow at him “And it had nothing at all to do with the pretty new girl who sat behind you, hmm?”

“She was pretty, wasn’t she?” When he was favored with Stiles Look #45: I can’t believe I have to put up with your lovesick nonsense when we’re probably going to die any minute, he knew he must be sporting a dopey grin on his face.

“We have to get you back to the town proper before that thing comes back to claim you or whatever. Dammit, I knew I should have read up on werewolf claiming rituals. But I thought it might involve pee.” Stiles shook his head, putting on a brave smile for Scott. “Based on your age and weight, the bite recovery period window is 3-4 minutes. You should be good to go now.”

Sure enough, when Scott reached down to touch the bite, his fingers met smooth, unblemished skin. “How do you know all this stuff? I don’t remember Ms. Morrell teaching that.”

“That’s because she specializes in cryptic advice. It runs in the family. Besides, being a French teacher, a guidance counselor, and teaching an elective? It’s a wonder she has time to anchor wards let alone teach us about the recovery time of werewolf bites. Okay, the full moon is one week away so we have to start setting up a schedule for your training. You’ll need to find an anchor, establish rudimentary bonds, and hopefully resist the Alpha’s control.” Stiles kept up a steady stream of talking as he helped Scott to his feet and they began to walk back towards the trail that led back to town.

“Dr. Deaton isn’t cryptic, Stiles. He just likes to mess with you.”

Stiles squawked indignantly. “Is that all you got from my speech? That was definitely the least important part. And no, Deaton has no sense of humor. I told you my theory about how he’s a robot masquerading as a Druid masquerading as a vet, right?”

Scott sighed gustily. “Yes, many times.”

“You’ll see, man. One day, all my theories will be proven true and then you’ll have to bow down to Stiles Stilinski, dispenser of truth.” Stiles swept his hands out, probably to denote the boundaries of his new kingdom.

“Including the one where you think Lydia Martin is a banshee and doesn’t know it, the bad vibes you claim are actually serial murderer vibes you get from that nice guy Matt who sits next to you in Economics, and the fact that the ocean came from the tears of dinosaurs before they died?” Scott smiled wryly as Stiles nearly fell over at that last part.

He quickly recovered. “That last one doesn’t count! I came up with that when we were seven! And teaching us about extinction at such a tender age is undoubtedly grounds for a child abuse claim. They showed us pictures of baby dinosaurs, Scott! How could you not be upset that they all died? What about that fossil they found with the pregnant Brachiosaurus. That was probably Littlefoot’s mother!”

Scott, used to Stiles’ rants about anything ranging from circumcision to the distribution of bananas, just nodded along.

Stiles jutted his lip out. “I still think I’m right about those first two, though. So, training schedule?”

“Tomorrow won’t work, I have that date with Allison. I’m planning on taking her through a romantic walk in the woods. Although,” Scott said, glancing around him in distaste. “Maybe we should just go get milkshakes or something instead.”

“This isn’t Grease, Scott. This is important, life-saving work. What if you start to wolf out when you’re around Allison? Or, more importantly, me? You won’t be in control. You could seriously hurt someone.” Stiles stopped him, jabbing his finger into Scott’s chest.

“It’ll be fine, Stiles. Even if it was a werewolf, it was probably just a rogue Omega. Their bites don’t turn you,” Scott said confidently. He was sure he remembered that part from Supernatural Creatures correctly.

“Hello, earth to Scott, it had glowing red eyes. Of course it was an Alpha. Not to mention your bite has already healed. I think that’s a pretty good indication that you’ve been turned!” Stiles was flailing now, which meant he was getting pretty upset/annoyed/worried.

“This is my first date ever, Stiles.” Then, in an act of desperation. “I’m invoking the Bro Code!”

Stiles mouth dropped open. “What?! You can’t invoke the Bro Code! Section 7, paragraph B, ‘Any and all acts hereby stated in the most holy of Bro Codes can be revoked when either member is in peril. So mote it be.’”

“I don’t remember reading that!” Scott was genuinely frustrated. He wanted to go on a date with Allison. She was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen and he’d felt an instant connection with her.

Stiles shrugged. “I added it after you fell asleep reading the color-coded, highlighted binder I prepared for you. I worked hard on that, you know, and you left a big drool spot right in the middle of the page!”

“Stiles, please.” He had no choice. He would have to resort to his last option. But per the rules Stiles laid down years ago, he wouldn’t be able to use them again for a whole month. He would just have to take that chance. Scott thought of the dinosaurs, and turned his best puppy-dog eyes on Stiles.

“Gah, I’m blind!” That was always Stiles’ reaction to this particular expression. Scott felt sort of bad for using them now, after all Stiles was only trying to help, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And this was the only form of leverage he had and would ever have on his best friend.

After holding out for 44 seconds, 5 seconds shorter than his absolute record, Stiles massaged his temples and nodded.

“Yes,” Scott shouted, punching the air. One date with Allison, here he comes.

When the date inevitably ended in disaster (Scott would never admit it, but Stiles was right 97% of the time), it was Stiles who had come to his rescue, simultaneously talking him down even as Scott tried to throw him across the room and asking Allison to keep an open mind and let Scott explain things to her later.

He had locked Scott in the refrigerator at the diner. Scott could hear him kneeling down by the door. “Scott, listen. I know you’re not in your right mind right now, but you need to listen. The werewolf isn’t some monster you have to carry around inside you for the rest of your life. It’s a part of you now. And that means you can control it. So I want you to focus, okay? Focus on the most powerful thing you can think of. It can be an emotion, an object, a person. Maybe even a saying. Just focus on whatever it is keeps you going during the day.”

Scott’s first thought had been his mom. But even though he loved her dearly, she was only a part of his world. So he thought of Stiles. And Allison. And the sheriff. He thought of the Stilinski-McCall household and the way the sheriff and Stiles had filled up a void he hadn’t even realized was there after his father had left. He thought of the way Allison’s hair smelled, the sweet curve of her smile, how tough she was in the face of danger.

And slowly his snarls had diminished, his bloodlust dimmed, and he could feel his claws, teeth, and hair receding back into his skin. “Sti-Stiles?”

“Oh my god, Scott, is that you? Hold on, buddy, I’ll have you out of here in a jiffy. I already evacuated the place so don’t worry about that. A couple people tried to call the cops but I convinced them not to. You’re going to be just fine, buddy, okay?” Scott let Stiles’ voice surround him, keeping him in check.

And that was the first and last time Scott had lost control.

Thinking back on it now, Scott sees how much Stiles risked for him. The least he could do is return the favor. What’s the first thing you do when investigating a crime? Establish motive, maybe.

Why did the Nogitsune come after Stiles? Of all the people in the world, Scott will be the first to tell you all about Stiles’ more noble qualities, like his smarts and his loyalty, but the Nogitsune couldn’t have known about that. Stiles only shows those qualities to those he trusts completely.

Surely possessing a werewolf or a banshee or even a badass hunter like Allison would lead to more chaos and destruction, which the thing went on about often enough.  
Even though he had been told time and time again about his “superior status” by the few werewolves who lived in Beacon Hills, Scott could never shake the feeling of still being human. With a few extra…upgrades and benefits. Perhaps this was why his guild was one of the few werewolf-headed guilds and the only one in the entire country (as far as he knew, he made a mental note to ask Stiles about it later) that did not include a single mage.

Scott abandons those thoughts. He decides he doesn’t care about the motive of the fox spirit. That fucker had possessed his best friend and forced him to do terrible things. It had fed on his insecurities and doubts, twisting everything up in Stiles’ mind until it left only destruction in its wake.

Well, not anymore. Scott hopes the thing is prepared to deal with a True Alpha, a banshee, a hunter, and a vengeful Stiles. And if Stiles attempts to sacrifice himself like he planned, Scott will do everything in his power to stop him. Bro Code Section 4, paragraph G: “Brosoever shall be in peril need not fear. Bros do not abandon each other. Bros do not start fights they cannot win. So Bro need only sit tight, mouth off, and enjoy the vacation. Bro is on his way.”

* * *

 

Stiles has the plan all mapped out in his head.

Using the locator charm he got as a favor from a grateful witch, he had placed one of the discarded flies from the Nogitsune on it until it glowed red, indicating a successful cast. Following the charm to an abandoned cave, Stiles had scoped out the area, making sure it was clear of all parties. He didn’t want to add anyone else to his growing body count.

The Nogitsune wasn’t at his cozy little abode at the moment, so Stiles let himself in to plant his binding circle and see what the fox spirit had up its sleeve. It seems old fly-breath picked the perfect spot for a convergence of energies. The cave was located right where the Airlie, Lupa, and Varkol counties met; it was about twenty miles from the nearest town. Stiles could sense the presence of a large and menacing nemeton just yards away. And if that wasn’t enough, Stiles could feel the low thrum of a leyline running under his feet. The Nogitsune was about to do some serious magic.

So Stiles has to wait. He’s good at the waiting game, though. Years of waiting for Lydia to notice him, waiting for his mom to succumb to her illness, waiting for his dad to stop drinking, waiting for Scott to realize what’s right in front of him. Yeah, he’s good at waiting.

He’ll have to wait for the opportune moment to strike. He’s only got one shot at this. The Nogitsune may figure out his plan before he gets a chance to enact the sacrifice.

Which is precisely why he created a binding circle. Apparently, even though the Nogitsune was no longer in his head that didn’t make its extensive knowledge of runes vanish. Stiles isn’t sure what will happen to his newfound knowledge of runes when he destroys the thing, but he’ll be dead anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

Stiles had crafted his own version of a binding circle, combining the runes for “trap,” “barrier,” “seal,” and, just for funsies, the word bastard, which was spelled from the “a pox upon your family” rune and “you have caused us grievous harm therefore we are within our rights to punish you” rune. No one used such old-school runes anymore—they dated back to even before the royal families—so hopefully the Nogitsune wouldn’t recognize his unique concoction before it was too late.

While he crouches there, waiting to pounce on it after it entered the cave to limit its range of motion, he wonders if Scott and the others figured it out yet. He had left them clues just in case he failed, but if all went according to plan they wouldn’t arrive until after he had finished. Otherwise, he would have to count on them to find another way to stop it.  
Stiles makes sure to keep the Stilinski Don’t-Mind-Me Cloak covering him at all times. It’s not Nogitsune tested, but it would have to do in a pinch. Even low visibility runes took up a lot of magic. And while Stiles has some now, it’s not enough for such high level feats.

Stiles waves away a fly, then freezes. It must be here.

Indeed, that fly is the only indication of its arrival. Stiles tenses when it strolls past his hiding spot just inside the mouth of the cave in a corner covered in shadows, but it does not appear to notice him.

Unfortunately, it does not cooperate and step into his binding circle either.

Stiles had placed it in the center of the cave, figuring whatever magical brouhaha this thing had planned, it would channel magic best there.

Man, it’s weird seeing a double of his body. This must be how that cloned sheep feels when she sees all her sheep doubles. Stiles vows to treat any and all sheep he comes across as his kin.

“Show yourself.” Stiles’ insides turn to ice. Has he been made already?

“Nice place you got here,” says a voice from behind him, doubtless causing Stiles to have several heart attacks.

The Nogitsune twists with a roar and, wow, that’s the maddest Stiles has ever seen it. “Noshiko,” it practically spit the word out.

Stiles looks at the woman—Noshiko?—who entered the cave. She’s holding a katana in one hand (what the fuck, Stiles hopes she's bringing better weapons) and some kind of sparkling energy in the other.

“I heard you were back, but I must admit I had a hard time believing it. It took me a while to track you down.” She and the Nogitsune are circling each other like prey.

“As much as I enjoyed being locked up under a tree, I can’t say I wasn’t pleased to get out and stretch my legs. The dirt and roots did lack certain…panache.” The Nogitsune flashes its dark energy at her.

She looks unimpressed. “I stopped you once before, I am certainly capable of doing it again.”

The Nogitsune snorts. He’s picking up on human mannerisms quickly for a 1,000 year old spirit. “Stop me? You never stopped me, Noshiko, you simply postponed me. You see, we are kindred spirits of a sort, but my destiny supersedes yours. I am a being of chaos, strife, and above all pain. Those things exist aplenty in this world.” It begins circling the other kitsune. “You once called upon me to do your bidding. In your thirst for revenge, you tapped into something far greater than you could ever imagine. You think these lowly demon bugs will stop me?” It gestures to the five black-suited shapes that Stiles only just notices. “You have no tails left.”

The Nogitsune lunges suddenly, but the other kitsune is just as fast. They whirl around the room, the katana glinting and the Nogitsune’s Void magic sucking up the light wherever it touches and eating holes in her flesh. The woman abruptly chucks her sparkling energy ball thing into the Nogitsune’s face. It howls in pain as its face gives the impression of rapidly aging (or rather, Stiles’ face; is that what he’ll look like when he’s older?). Throwing her violently across the room in its potent rage, the Nogitsune appears to gain the upper hand. Stiles has to physically hold himself back from rushing in and smashing that thing with his baseball bat when he hears a loud crack. The kitsune’s right leg is bent at a sharp angle.

There’s a twitch in the air and the Oni surround the Nogitsune, pummeling it with their ninjatos until it’s forced to retreat. This only seems to amuse the Nogitsune though, and Stiles knows what’s going to happen even before he sees the smug smile stretch across its face. The Nogitsune shoves its hand into their chests one by one and pulls out things too small for Stiles to see. “Like I said,” he intones with a tight-lipped smile, “Nothing but bugs.” He smashes whatever is in his hand and chucks the remains away.

Stiles leans over to get a better look. Fireflies, he notes in disbelief, identifiable only from the slight glow of their crushed innards. Why does everything to do with this bastard involve bugs?

“Now, where were we?” The Nogitsune advances slowly toward the other kitsune, confidence in every step.

“You can kill me, but it won’t change anything. There’s too much magic in this world. Someone will be powerful enough to stop you.” Even with a busted leg and a literal hole in her stomach, this lady means business. Stiles decides he likes her.

The Nogitsune, however, does not, if the sneer on its face is any indication. “Maybe not, but it will bring me great pleasure. And you’re right. This world does have much to offer in the way of magic. Which is why I will be using it to achieve my true form. None of those cheap knives as tails tricks.”

Stiles guesses this is Serious Business by the way the other kitsune’s eyes widen. He tries to imagine what the Nogitsune’s true form could be. A giant fly, maybe? Or perhaps the nine-tailed fox of the legends?

“You-You can’t. By the stories our ancestors passed on, it is forbidden.” She’s eyeing her katana on the cave floor, nearly within reach of her fingertips.

The Nogitsune casually kicks it away. “Here’s the thing. Those ancestors? They unleashed me, sure. But then they let me rot under a tree when I could be out in the world causing chaos. I’m not too fond of those ancestors right now.” He leans down and gets right up in the other kitsune’s face. “Goodbye, Noshiko. It looks like your longevity ends here.”  
He blasts her away as if she were nothing, but doesn’t even check to see if she’s still alive as she slumps down the cave wall. Careless. Allison would call him out on that, for sure.

“Now then, where was I?” He continues further into the mouth of the cave, just inches from Stiles’ binding circle.

Stiles takes a deep breath. It’s now or never. When the Nogitsune walks into the binding circle and the runes spring into life around it, he takes off his cloak and steps forward.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to give my heartfelt thanks to all those who read my first chapter. Words cannot express my gratitude. And for all those who subscribed, gave kudos, and bookmarked, a special thank you goes out to you! I'm sorry it took so long to write chapter 2, I just did not have any motivation.
> 
> Peter finally makes an appearance! I hope I did him justice.
> 
> Also, the information about the origin of the word death comes from Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

 

"I believe you were going to do your super-duper magic voodoo ritual to turn yourself back into a giant fox, which personally, I wouldn’t go for since you already have a rockin’ bod via me. And can I just say, I did not know my face could make those expressions. Like, I always pictured my snarl to be a bit…more, you know? Maybe I need to practice in front of a mirror or something because if it looks anything like yours, I’m sure I couldn’t even scare a chicken. Hey, why didn’t you change outfits? I have great fashion sense, but fighting in a t-shirt and jeans is just not as cool as like a badass longcoat or even a cape. Definitely go for the cape. A black one. Or red. But primary colors don’t really suit our complexion. So black it is. It goes with the whole dark and broody villain thing you have going on too.” Stiles is aware he’s rambling, thank you very much.

The Nogitsune just looks pained. “As if I didn’t have to put up with you enough, foolish boy. I decided to spare you given our mutualistic-”

“Parasitic, the word you’re looking for is parasitic.”

“-and tentative working relationship, but I see now I should have killed you when I had the chance. Be sure to revel in your freedom while you can. This primitive circle won’t hold me for long and the ritual to return me to my true form is about to begin.” The Nogitsune somehow gives off the image of relaxing without taking its eyes off Stiles. Which is impressive, considering everything it says sounds like it comes from Villainy for Dummies. Feeling generous, he mentally awards it an E for effort.

Stiles rolls his shoulders to get rid of some of the tenseness in his body. Apparently, facing death head-on causes stiff muscles. Who knew?

A bolt of black energy crackles from inside the binding circle. The Nogitsune is testing its limits. “I see. These runes are more impressive than I thought. Have you been taking notes, Stiles?” The thing remains blank and expressionless, but the way its fingers curl slightly reveals some small amount of nerves. Human tells, especially in Stiles’ body, are much harder to hide.

Stiles fights off a shiver at his name coming from its lips. “Just took a few souvenirs is all. Was a hell of a trip.”

Deaton is fond of saying how magic is alive. Often, amidst a crisis of epic proportions that is the typical week in Beacon Hills, this will be the only advice he offers. Even Scott’s wide-eyed worship of the man had stopped after hearing Deaton’s cryptic bullshit motto for the thousandth time. But damn if the man wasn’t right. Not that Stiles would ever admit it.

Because Stiles can feel the Nogitsune’s magic scrape and bump against the edges of his mind. The foreignness of it echoes in his ears in a sick, twisted parody of his rabbit-quick heartbeat. His head is stuffed with the sticky residue of its magic. The icy tendrils of it press against his temples, make their way down his throat, settle next to his heart. Nogitsunes appear to have an affinity for the cold, given his constant trembling over the last four months. He hopes Lydia is taking notes for the Bestiary.

But Stiles has also always believed in using everything in your arsenal to destroy your enemies and, really, the Nogitsune owes him big time. The least it could do is let Stiles use its own magic against it.

He paces the length of the cave, feeling the Nogitsune’s hungry eyes tracking his every move. If Stiles calculated correctly, the thing will have no choice but to try to kill him after this. Nothing annoys the Nogitsune more than someone or something thwarting its plans. Except maybe being trapped. Tricky creatures hate to be tricked in return. Which is what Stiles has to do. Be a fly in the ointment, so to speak. Although, given the situation, that’s a bad choice of expression.

The Nogitsune cocks its head, staring at Stiles’ with all the concern of a cat chasing a mouse. “What exactly are you trying to accomplish here? The sun has almost set. When the moon comes out, the ritual will begin regardless of whether I am in this circle or not. Such bindings cannot hope to contain the amount of magic which will be unleashed.”

Stiles is careful to let just a hint of fear into his face. “Really?” He scuffs his sneaker on the ground, keeping his eyes averted in an unconscious werewolf gesture of submission.

One corner of the Nogitsune’s mouth turns up in an insincere smile. It leans forward, careful to keep clear of the binding’s edges. “It would be best for you to surrender now. Given our bond, I may consider making you my pet. Provided you remove these bindings, of course. I would prefer a more comfortable environment when I transform.”

Stiles widens his eyes just so, purses his lips in a considering manner. He briefly debates cupping his chin in thought, but thinks it might be a bit too hammy even for the Nogitsune.

This is how to trick a trickster. Make it believe it is three steps ahead when it doesn’t even know the game it’s playing.

Sensing weakness, it presses further. “I’m afraid you’re nothing more than used goods, Stiles. All that delicious chaos we created together, your friends and family would never consider taking you back. And taking into account the darkness inside you, can you really blame them? It was pathetically easy to possess such a vessel. You came practically ready-made.”

Even if this wasn’t all part of his plans, the cruel gleam in its eyes tells Stiles all he needs to know about the Nogitsune’s true intentions. It doesn’t intend to let this insult go. Stiles can sympathize a little, and god, what does that say about him that he can sympathize with a monster? But sometimes during his panic attacks when the world feels like it’s closing in, he thinks he’d do anything to make it stop.

The Nogitsune knows deep down inside that it can be defeated. But it will not see its downfall in the scrawny, scared boy standing in front of it. Stiles will only have a split second to act after his sacrifice. Which means a blow that won’t be instantaneous but will kill him eventually.

Stiles fights the urge to laugh. All he needs is a little time. And isn’t that ironic?

The problem with grief, besides the obvious, is that it makes you lose time. After Stiles’ mom died (after he killed her), he lived for four hours each day. The rest of time did not exist for him. It was just those four long hours each day, and even that was unbearable.

How many hours has Stiles lost to the Nogitsune? It got less and less as time went on. Almost half a day, at first. Then hours, then minutes. Stiles does some quick calculations in his head. Which means that while the rest of the world got to experience these last four months, Stiles only got to live for twenty-four days. And living is a generous term. It was more a half-life than anything.

He fingers the dagger hidden in his pocket. Allison and Chris had initially been reluctant to let Stiles anywhere near pointy objects, let alone weapons. Even a potato could cause chaos in Stiles’ hands, as evidenced by the Microwave Incident.

Honestly, he meant to hit 2 minutes on the microwave timer, not 20, and the book on the history of banshees Lydia had loaned him with only a threat of eternal damnation should he damage it and much groveling on his part was much more interesting than watching the slow rotation of the potato. There were hardly any flames at all, really. Just some smoke.

The fire department, used to dealing with Stiles’ mishaps since he was little, had nearly lost half their force to the potato when they promptly walked out the door at the sight of a red-faced Allison wafting the smoke towards the window and Scott poking the newly formed charcoal with his finger. Stiles, who knew all of their families and had been invited to countless graduation parties, baby showers, and magical christenings, had waved goodbye casually when they left with relieved looks on their faces, his nose still buried in his book.

The fire department had a biggest potato contest every February in honor of the dead potato. Stiles got to keep the winner, but only if there hadn’t been anymore incidents involving fire. Needless to say, he never got the potato.

But when Allison joined the guild and dragged Chris along as guild-adjacent, he insisted every member should learn to defend themselves. Scott had the whole claws, teeth, supernatural strength thing going on. Lydia had beauty, brains, a voice that could rupture eardrums, and could access the realms of the dead. Chris had been training Allison since she was old enough to hold a bow, obviously.

As for Stiles, he had his sarcasm, biting wit, and show-stopping looks. When he had explained this to Chris and Allison, though, they had both laughed. Well, Allison laughed. Chris’ face did this weird kind of spasm thing. Which, rude. So they ran Stiles (and everyone else) through the gamut of weapons, but they paid particular attention to Stiles because he was, as his dad had once termed it, A Hopeless Case.

And Stiles could shoot a gun. He had taken a few lessons at the range with his dad when he was old enough and, as a result of his dad’s profession, knew everything there was to know about legal and illegal weaponry. But when he had fired off a few rounds, lowered his gun, and clicked off the safety, Chris had snatched it out of his hands without so much as a by your leave, Allison nodding sagely behind him. The guy could seriously channel Ollivander when he wanted to.

Allison had then thrust some small throwing knives into his hands. And things progressed from there, with Allison and Chris alternately snatching various weapons out of his hands and replacing them with ones they thought would work better. This continued until the dagger. Stiles tested the weight in his hand curiously, and something had just felt right. He had stabbed it forward and hit the close-range target in the nose on accident (he was aiming for the chest). Closer than his previous attempts with other weapons, which hit the boob, groin, left buttcheek, and, in one unfortunate aiming mishap, the left pinky finger. Chris did not discriminate when it came to target practice dummies.

Although Stiles normally preferred to fight on the sidelines, creeping around the edges looking for holes in the enemy’s defenses, a dagger allowed him protection in close-combat. Truly, the thing was theoretically pretty useless if he ever went head-to-head with a supernatural creature faster and stronger than him (which was everyone) but people tended to underestimate Stiles. His record was 4-0 in Stiles’ favor in these situations.

Hilariously, Lydia was also most proficient with a dagger. She and Stiles would have made a terrifying couple if they had ever clicked that way.

When Stiles turned 16, Chris gave him his favorite dagger. Well, more like he shoved the box containing the dagger into Stiles’ hands and then spun on his heel and walked away. He had stared at the box for what felt like hours before opening it. Inside was the most beautiful dagger he had ever seen. The hilt was a simple design made of redwood, with a star carved onto the top. The sheath had a series of triangles covering the length of it, and the blade looked deadly and sharp even under the lights of his bedroom.

Stiles won’t ever admit it, but it brings him great comfort to run his hands along the hilt, feeling the smooth contours of the wood and the harsher lines that make up the star. The texture underneath his fingers feels like home. He always keeps it tucked away somewhere on his person.

It allows him some small measure of solace now, eyeing the beginnings of nightfall from his position in the cave. The latent magic in the air makes the hairs on his arm stand at attention. The Nogitsune scans the sky for any moonlight. His gleeful grin when some of the clouds shift and break is terrifying.

Stiles can feel the remnants of his puny magic snap as the runes surrounding the Nogitsune disperse from the powerful blowback of ancient magic. It brings with it the smell of power, hot and pungent, and a crackle of ozone. Stiles puts his arms up to protect his face when the wind kicks up from outside the cave and blows clouds of bat droppings and dust into the air.

He can just make out the form of the Nogitsune through the haze. It starts to shift right in front of Stiles’ eyes. He can hear bones breaking and regrowing, muscles retracting and lengthening, sees its tail grow out of Stiles’ twin butt, which must be a painful experience. Its crow of triumph turns into a roar halfway through, and it rings against Stiles’ eardrums until he’s sure they’re going to burst.

When the transformation is over, the Nogitsune spends a few minutes just gazing at the long expanse of its body, the narcissistic jerk. It must still be able to hear Stiles’ thoughts because it turns to him, elation evident on its bestial face. It favors Stiles with a grin full of shiny white teeth and lifts its gigantic paw into the air.

So melodramatic, Stiles thinks frustratedly as it slaps its paw down on the ground next to Stiles, shaking the ground so much Stiles almost loses his footing. He risks a glance up, but the ceiling holds up against the onslaught. The Nogitsune had chosen the cave well.

Stiles blows out an aggravated breath. He needs to speed this up before the Nogitsune loses interest. Playing with your food is bad etiquette. Especially if the food actually knows its food. He takes a deep breath, then leaps forward with a howl, and such a guttural sound wouldn’t be out of place from a werewolf.

He lands on the fox’s side, his hands fumbling in its coarse fur as he tries to get enough of a grip to pull himself up onto its back, hoping to weaken it before he goes for the killing blow. He has barely begun the arduous process when the fox notices what must be the equivalent of a flea on its back. Its black, baleful eyes glare at Stiles for a moment. “Hehe, hello there. Don’t mind meeeeeeeeeee-”

The last part of his sentence hangs in the air as the fox flings Stiles off his back violently. He lands with a loud crack, the back of his head hitting the side of the cave with resounding force.  

He looks mournfully at the shoe lost in the scuffle.

His Don’t-Mind-Me Cloak flutters to the ground. Traitorous, fair-weather cloak. It only abandons him when things get rough.

Stiles’ vision starts to blur and he has to fight back a wave of nausea. The cave has suddenly tilted sharply to the right when he hauls himself to his feet. The fox, who was watching his progress with malevolent glee, gives a snort of contempt at his pathetic state.

“Hey, foxface, I’ve got a riddle for you!” Stiles shouts when its attention wavers. Stiles has had enough of this shit. No one is allowed to act bored when they fight him. “They can hurt without moving. They can poison without touching. They carry both truth and lies, and they should not be judged by their size. What are they?”

The fox grunts in incredulity at Stiles’ gumption, looking reluctantly impressed despite itself.

Stiles sets his feet. The nemeton couldn’t plant itself better than this. “Words.”

The fox hisses with fury and lunges, claws extended and jaw gaping. Stiles curses as he dodges out of the way. He’ll need to be right under it if he wants to get in a blow to weaken it. Its tails swish behind it in agitation.

As it swings back for another round, Stiles ducks, making sure to angle his body just right. He ends up under the fox this time. From this close, he can smell the salty wetness of its breath.  He charges forward with his dagger in hand, aiming for the soft underside of its belly. He stabs up blindly. Judging by the warm stream of blood oozing down his arm, he’s successful.

The fox shrieks in pain and fury. Faster than Stiles can see, it jumps away and darts out a paw, pinning Stiles beneath it.

Stiles writhes under its large paw, his daggerless hand and feet scrabbling for purchase on the cold stone floor.

“Farewell, pathetic human,” it says, its great voice rumbling through Stiles’ chest as it presses down hard. “You were almost a worthy adversary, near the end.”

And this is it. The Nogitsune was right. There isn’t enough love left in him or for him. Stiles closes his eyes and thinks of the guild, his dad, Melissa, Natalie, and Chris. He thinks of his mom and wonders if he’ll be able to see her when he dies. He can almost feel them surrounding him, their love and affection tearing through every dark and dusty corner of his mind until its fit to bursting.

“Goodbye, everyone,” he whispers through a haze of pain, a trickle of blood running down his chin, thinking how suitable it is for him to die a failure.

Later he will wonder how he heard the zing of activated magic, the weight of it even more powerful than the ritual magic the Nogitsune had used, in the throes of the greatest pain he ever knew. But he does hear it. The Nogitsune does too, taking a break from its regularly scheduled murderous actions to cock its head as the sound of an oncoming train approaches.

The magic hits the Nogitsune all at once, throwing it off of Stiles violently, and it whimpers in confusion as it blurs between forms. It finally settles on Stiles’ body, which looks incredibly small compared to the giant mass of the fox.

Stiles wastes no time. As if guided by some unknown force, he crawls his way painstakingly over to where it’s writhing on the ground. His hands are slick with blood, but at this proximity there’s no way he would miss. His blow lands with deadly accuracy straight through the Nogitsune’s heart. It gives a shudder once, twice, then lies still.  

Stiles tries to muster the energy to spit on it. Instead, he gives one last gasping breath and everything goes dark.

 

* * *

 

Something in the way the world seems to suddenly tilt on its axis tells Melissa what’s happened even before she hears Lydia’s scream.

She meets the sheriff’s eyes helplessly. And then he’s charging forward and bellowing, held back by Chris, whose face is the grimmest she’s ever seen it. The sheriff gets about ten feet even with his human-shaped impediment, until Natalie steps in his path and her nervous fluttering around him appears to deflate him all at once, and Melissa can see in the shaking of his knees how he would sink to the ground if it weren’t for the half-hug, half-chokehold Chris has on him.

He looks like a child without his mother in Chris’ arms. Chris is saying something to the sheriff now, but Melissa can’t hear it over the roaring in her ears. She touches her pulse, sure she can feel the rush of blood streaming through her veins. She can’t seem to move otherwise. Her feet remain rooted to the ground.

As though hearing him from a great distance through a tin can, she can just make out the sheriff saying in response to Chris, in a puzzled tone her nurse side immediately associates with shock, “It kills me he’ll never know how great a person he was. How much light he brought into my life.”

You fucker, Melissa wants to say so badly she can practically feel the bumps from the raised words under her skin. You absolute fucker.

She remembers a sharp grin hiding an even sharper mouth. She remembers bewilderment at her hugs and affection. She remembers an unrelenting heart masking deep insecurities.

Hadn’t they seen the way the sheriff looked at Stiles? “My surrogate son,” he would say, ruffling Scott’s hair, but hadn’t she heard what he really meant to say? “The son I wish I had.” And Chris had a hard time comforting his daughter and Natalie often treated Lydia like a prize to be won and Melissa couldn’t stop the tiny bit of fear she felt at Scott’s condition. But.

But Scott was hers. Even when he was a different person entirely from the little boy she had raised and thought she knew, he was still hers.

And couldn’t she see the same fierce devotion in Natalie’s face when she gave Lydia ice to put on her throat, in Chris’ hands as he restrung Allison’s bow and smoothed the folds in her clothes?

Could Stiles see it? Why couldn’t the sheriff be happy with what was right in front of him all along?

The gun slips from her fingers as she falls to the ground. Someday our children will die, she thinks. They will die and because of us there’s just as much bad as there is good in them. Resentment, joy. Contentment, disappointment. Love. Hurt.

She turns and dry heaves all her regrets onto the dirt. It’s so funny, she reflects distantly, how solid everything looks when someone else’s world is falling apart. The trees surrounding her stand tall and strong. The rock to her left looks sturdy enough to weather even the worst storm. They speak of knuckles against her teeth, calloused hands, the unrelenting heat of the summer sun.

She feels weak in comparison. She could blow away any moment, like a wisp in the wind, and leave all this behind. Scott’s panicked denials, Chris’ clenched jaw, Natalie’s anxious hand-wringing, Lydia’s screams, Allison’s rage, and the sheriff’s childish befuddlement.

Melissa digs her hands into the ground and weeps.

 

* * *

 

Lydia screams and screams and screams. The bond in her mind flickers and dies, fading into nonexistence alongside her friend.

Dimly, she can hear Scott’s frantic denials as her screams fade (and is that all Stiles is worth? 32 seconds of a banshee’s scream?). “He can’t be dead, he can’t be dead,” over and over again.

“Shut up,” she hears someone shout at him. “Shut up! He’s dead! Dead, dead, dead!” Whoever it is lets out a hysterical cackle to punctuate each word. The growing rawness in her throat makes her realize it’s her.

Many things flash through her mind simultaneously.

The origin of the word death comes from the Old English word deað, and has roots in the Proto-Germanic word dauthuz and the Proto-Indo-European stem dheu, meaning the “Process, act, condition of dying.” Many ancient cultures believed in burying their dead outside the city limits. The Romans would hold processions for the dead, wearing wax masks called _imagines_ representing deceased ancestors.

But what good are useless facts? Who cares about the strength of the mind when it can’t even save one soul? What good is a connection with death if you can’t stop it?

And, oh god, what if she scries the realm of the dead and sees Stiles? Is this her rightful punishment for failing to prevent his death?

Millions of shadows from the dark woods surround her. She can see the luminous eyes of a deer, the leaves of the rustling trees, the sporadic clouds passing above. They are all pointing at her. Where the blame rests.

 

* * *

 

The moment Allison hears Lydia’s screams she feels like crumpling to the ground and staying there forever. She spent so much time trying not to be a weak little girl and ended up here. Useless. Powerless. A friend dead because she wasn’t good enough.

She had duped herself into thinking that she had some form of mastery over her own fate. She trained as hard as she could in archery and self-defense and met every challenge the guild faced with what she thought was grace and heroism. But everything she did was meaningless.

“Don’t cry” becomes a mantra in her head as she forces back the tears. They run down her cheeks anyway. She can taste bile in her throat and blood on her tongue from where she bit it to hold back her sobs.

Fuck this, she thinks viciously, kicking at a tree just to feel the pain in her toes.

Allison has always despised weakness. At its best, this revulsion was a kind of salvation; at its worst a deadly trap. Asking for help and relying on others became acceptable behaviors in everyone except herself. But throughout the years these well-worn pathways of her mind became covered with bramble and thorns. She existed as a traveler with no way home.

And somewhere along the way, three idiots lit up the roads of her mind and helped her clear out most of the junk. They made her realize that power isn’t about strength or weakness, it’s about knowing the right action to take and committing yourself fully to that action. And if you’re lucky, you’ll have people with you to pick up your slack should you falter.

Now one of her lights is gone. Extinguished. And for what? Some fox demon bent on causing chaos?

They had defied the odds so many times. She supposes they were due for something like this sooner or later. But it’s so unfair. Death is so fair that it’s _unfair_.

She kicks the tree again for good measure, wipes away her tears, and walks over to her dad, whose subtly shaking shoulders are the only sign she can see of his grief from behind. She nudges him with her shoulder as she comes up beside him, and he engulfs her in a hug before she can ask. She buries her head in his chest and silently promises Stiles that she will get revenge on his behalf. She can almost hear his fond chuckle in her ear.

 

* * *

 

The thing about dying is that it really hurts.

Once when Stiles was twelve, he heard a story about a man being struck by lightning. The man suffered a direct strike, and his insides literally exploded when lightning punched through his cell membranes. He probably didn’t even know what happened to him. Lucky bastard. The lightning didn’t care about the meatbag in its way. It just wanted to get to the earth.

Stiles, on the other hand, can feel an echo of every ache and pain. The throbbing in his head, the steady stinging in his chest, the rattling sound of struggling lungs. But these are a dull reminder of the remembered pain of dying. What happened to his injuries?

Like some jerk showing off his new hot ride, his mind revs up, idles, then revs up again.

He becomes aware of things in stages. The pull of dried blood on his face. The complete lack of sound. His toes as he wiggles them in his sock. Like slowly awakening from a good sleep, he can practically feel each part of his brain turn on.

Opening his eyes again is not something Stiles, being dead and all, should be able to do. He contemplates this as he lays on something cold and hard.

Then he accidentally inhales some of the dust circulating in the air and starts choking. He rolls over to his side, this time ignoring the pain as he concentrates on trying not to asphyxiate. He already died from being crushed to death, thank you very much. And it took a nine-tailed fox to take him out. A little piece of dirt would never do him in.

Wait, breathing? Dead people don’t breathe. Yet Stiles can feel every inhale and exhale pass through his throat still scratchy from the dirt.

“I-I didn’t die,” Stiles whispers faintly, staring up at the ceiling of the cave in awe. He heaves himself to his feet and scans the room for the Nogitsune in the moonlight. If he squints, he can just make out a dark stain on the floor of the cave. Seriously, what the fuck?

He pats himself down in disbelief. All that’s left of lethal injuries is the blood saturating his shirt and lingering phantom pains.

“Most interesting,” says a voice from behind him. Stiles whips around to locate the source. There, an older man leans up against the side of the cave as if he owns it, with the bluest eyes Stiles has ever seen. “I’ve never seen someone pull off a sacrifice of pure love before. Color me impressed.”

Stiles notices the way his nostrils flare and his eyes involuntarily flash an even bluer shade as he scents the lingering magic in the air. Werewolf, then. Something about the guy’s smarmy grin sets Stiles’ teeth on edge. And that he knew more about the situation than Stiles. That more than anything made him open his mouth with a harsh, “Yeah, well no one asked you, creeper. Don’t you have anything better to do than stand around and comment on life-or-death situations? What are you, some kind of demented Greek chorus?”

The man’s smile widens. “You wound me so, young mage. Tell me, how did you manage to pull this off? I’ve never heard of someone escaping the control of a Nogitsune unscathed. You must be very powerful.”

“Not a mage, dude,” Stiles grumbles as pats the dust out of his clothes. A futile attempt as it appeared to be permanently imbedded in his skin alongside the blood. Of course, the guy with blue eyes looks impeccably dressed, not a hair out of place. Does he have no weaknesses? “And if you think this is unscathed, you need to get your eyes checked.” Stiles gestures to his ruined shirt and his shoeless foot.

“All relative, of course. Coming out of this experience with your life intact is no small feat. Many an ancient book has told tales of the Nogitsune’s aversion to death. The most anyone has managed is imprisonment.” The man is definitely interested now, his eyes intent on Stiles’ every move.

Stiles does his best to give nothing away despite being at an obvious disadvantage. “Just plucky I guess. It didn’t come without a cost, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“No, I suppose it didn’t.” Those captivating eyes seem to pierce right through him. Stiles tries to match his intensity, but judging by the very, very slight softening of the man’s eyes, he’s failed. He blames the adrenaline crash. He’s really starting to feel it now.

There’s something he recognizes clinging to the corners of the man’s eyes and mouth. Something about the way he holds himself. It smacks of desperation. Stiles opens his mouth to no doubt say something foolish, like offering this man his help and protection.  

The intense moment is broken by the arrival of a herd of elephants.

Or at least, that’s what it sounds like to Stiles.

There’s a dust cloud approaching. Stiles blinks in mild surprise at the arrival of what seems like half the town of Beacon Hills. The gleam of Scott’s red eyes is clear in the darkness of the woods.

The man’s mouth twists. “Ah, I see the cavalry has arrived. I’ll be taking my leave then.”

“Wait! You can’t just waltz in like you own the place without an explanation! Who the hell are you? And why do you care so much about the Nogitsune?” Stiles gestures wildly, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

The man heaves an exasperated sigh and all the pieces click into place for Stiles. Stiles is an expert at identifying every form of exasperation. The tone in every voice, the cadence of every sigh. And this-this particular flavor of exasperation is unique to only one family in Beacon Hills. “You’re a Hale!” Stiles blurts out.

The Hales are a big family pack of born werewolves who make their home in Beacon Hills. Deaton is their emissary. Scott went to them for help when he was first bitten but they seemed to be dealing with a different crisis at the time and didn’t have the manpower to spare. Or so Deaton explained to them later after having the door basically slammed in their face.

The man only flashes him a sardonic grin before positively sashaying out of the cave.

“Asshole,” Stiles mutters under his breath as the man leaves him to deal with the stampeding herd alone.

 

* * *

 

Noshiko looks on as the crowd descends upon the boy. The commotion gives her the chance to kneel down next to the dark stain that was once the Nogitsune. “Oh, my kin, how far you have fallen.” She brushes her hand against the spot, whispers, “The slippery soul knows no master.”

She suddenly must get out of this cave at once. She edges cautiously past the tangle of limbs, but they are too intent on celebration to notice her.

Noshiko reaches the entrance and tumbles out into the woods. She inhales the fresh air greedily, pressing a hand against her already healing ribs to help keep them in place. Misaligned ribs are a bitch to heal in her experience.

The snapping of a twig has her sighing. “Kira, you must learn to step lightly. Kitsunes are-”

“-creatures of stealth. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. More importantly, when do I get my tails?” Kira steps out of the woods with all the grace of a werewolf. Honestly, it’s a good thing kitsunes live extended lifespans. It may take that long for Kira to learn how to be light on her feet.

Kira clomps her way to her side, practically vibrating with excitement. “So is it true? The Nogitsune’s gone?”

The Nogitsune was something of a legend among the kitsunes. No one except Noshiko had ever been successful in summoning it, and as a result most did not believe it could be done and called her a fool and attention-seeker for spreading warnings. But the elders knew the truth of its capacity for death and destruction. Of its place in the world.

Noshiko nods once. “He-He actually killed it,” Kira breathes, her eyes alight with wonder. “Even you couldn’t kill it, mom, you just trapped it in that box when it was a fly-”

“Really, Kira, it was a bit more complicated than you’re making it sound. Young ones these days,” she runs a hand through her tangled hair, grimacing at the mess of gunk in it.

Kira takes a hairtie from around her wrist and hands it to her. She accepts it gratefully. “How did it get out again?”

Noshiko finishes tying her hair back. All she wants to do is go home, kiss her husband, and soak in a tub for a few hours with some Kenny G. “Only an invocation of forbidden magic is powerful enough to distort the wards on the box.”

“F-Forbidden magic?” Kira looks a little scared now.

Noshiko takes a moment to regret keeping Kira in the dark for so long. After the death of Rhys and her encounter with the Nogitsune, she had become disillusioned with anything and everything to do with magic and the supernatural. And then she had fallen in love with a completely human man, and that sealed the deal. But telling Kira on her 16th birthday put her well behind her peers when it came to the inner workings of magic.

“Forbidden magic is any magic capable of disrupting the natural balance of the world. It’s considered so heinous, the Supernatural Supervisory Committee doesn’t have any laws in the books about it because to perform this magic comes at a great cost. But we should get going. I’ll explain more later.” Noshiko strides forward, intent on getting home before dawn.

“Wait!” Kira tugs on her arm in protest. “I want to meet the guy who stopped it! Do you think he’ll sign something for me? I might have some paper in here.” She digs through her bag frantically.

Noshiko pinches the bridge of her nose. “Really, Kira, now is hardly the time-”

“Um, excuse me?” Noshiko turns. That ridiculous werewolf boy is standing there. The power she senses in him is at odds with the sheepish expression on his face. “I think you forgot something.”

He gestures to the side, where the redheaded banshee is holding something long and thin in her hands which bears a striking resemblance to-

Her katana! Noshiko fumbles at the strap on her side where she knows she put it after she woke up. How could the girl have taken it without her noticing? But there is no doubt, not with that smug look on her face and the stars in the Stilinski boy’s eyes.

“Lydia, you going to give it back?” The werewolf is staring between her and the banshee in confusion.

“In a minute, Scott. First, I don’t think Ms. Yukimura here would mind terribly much if I asked her a few questions, hmm?” The banshee smiles at her prettily.

Noshiko grits her teeth. To have been bested by a mere girl! Kira’s adoration is rising steadily, judging from the almost sparkles she’s giving off. “What is it you wish to know?”

“The Nogitsune was trapped once before. How did it get out?” If only the girl had asked a few minutes earlier, then she wouldn’t have to repeat herself.

“Forbidden magic. But I don’t know what kind or who cast it.” The gasps coming from Stilinski and the banshee satisfy her. The parents all look troubled too. But the hunter girl and the werewolf look a little lost. Noshiko is too old for this.

“You mean there’s something more powerful than that monster out there?” The Argent girl moves from where she’s bracketing Stilinski. Noshiko notes her silent footsteps with reluctant approval. She stares at Kira, hoping she’ll take note, but she’s gazing longingly at the way everyone is standing protectively around Stilinski.

“Those who call other people monsters frequently miss the monster in themselves. It may be dormant, it may be biding its time until its next meal, but it’s there. You would do well to heed my warning, Ms. Argent. You of all people should know the consequences of passing judgment before it’s due,” Noshiko says softly, thinking bittersweet thoughts about a girl who once prayed for revenge.

The werewolf is charging her even before she finishes the words, but Kira steps in front of her before he can make it very far. The look of blatant surprise on his face would be comical if it weren’t for the present state of affairs. Both hunters look stricken. Good.

She turns to the banshee. “My katana, please.” The banshee hands it over without a word. “Let’s go, Kira. Your father is meeting us at a rest stop a couple miles down the road.”

“No,” Kira says firmly.

“Excuse me?” Oh no, Noshiko recognizes that look on her face. This girl is as stubborn as her father.

“I-I want to join!” She gasps as if she can’t believe the words coming out of her mouth (and Noshiko can’t either) but continues resolutely, this time to the werewolf. “Please, let me join your guild!”

The werewolf stands with his mouth agape. The dark-haired woman (his mother?) elbows him in the side. His face curls into a sweet smile, and Noshiko can sort of see the appeal of having this boy as a leader. “Of course you can j-”

“Hold it.” That’s the Stilinski boy now, squinting suspiciously at them through bloodshot eyes. Noshiko notes the roughness of his voice. “Why exactly do you want to join this guild? Are you aware of the constant danger? And we don’t know anything about you. Are you a serial killer? Do you need True Alpha, banshee, or human blood for some nefarious purpose? And what about your mom? She’s shady as fuck, no offense,” he says as an aside to Noshiko, “and you just popped out of the woods from nowhere. Do you have stalker tenden-”

“Okay,” the banshee says, clearly taking charge. “That’s enough Stiles, honestly,” she hisses under her breath. Noshiko’s ears pick it up with no trouble.

The sweeping, intense look the banshee gives her daughter has Noshiko’s defenses up. Something like approval glitters in her eyes as she turns to the werewolf and nods once. Noshiko sees her slip her hand into Stilinski’s and give a reassuring squeeze. He seems to relax at that. Interesting.

Kira turns puppy-dog eyes on her. The werewolf takes his cue and does the same. In her peripheral vision, she observes the parents wincing. The combined effect is too much and before she knows it Noshiko finds herself agreeing to let her daughter join the guild.

“Yes!” Kira jumps up and down in pure joy. If nothing else, it’s worth it to see her this happy. Noshiko supposes she’ll have to learn their real names now. Already she’s making plans in her head to move to Beacon Hills while also conjuring up a truly horrific training regimen. She suspects the hunter will help her with that.

She sighs as the parents begin to drift in her direction. In some ways, living for so long has caused her to become detached and cynical. When she met Ken and had Kira, things seemed a little brighter. But forming attachments with mere mortals was dangerous. And maybe she’s a little lonely sometimes but it’s better than watching the people you love die one by one as you live on alone.

But somehow, seeing this guild of fools reminds her of Rhys. “Lighten up, Noshiko,” he used to say teasingly. “You just gotta live a little.”

So she tucks away her concerns and misgivings for the time being. She would give these people a chance. For Kira’s sake if nothing else. After all, if Rhys did it, it couldn’t be that hard.

 

* * *

 

With a dramatic groan, Kira surveys the stacks of books in front of her like a disgruntled king surveying his kingdom.

Allison, reclining on a chair in the library sharpening her knives, favors her with a kind smile. “Stiles and Lydia working you hard, huh?”

Kira slumps over the pile, then remembers Lydia’s threats against her being should she so much as wrinkle a page. “I guess this is their version of hazing? Stuffing as much knowledge as they can into me before I die of boredom.”

Allison snorts. “Something like that. They just want you to be prepared.” She gets up, tucking the knives away on her person in one smooth motion, and rummages around the bookshelf. “Ah-ha! I knew they didn’t find all my copies! Here, read this. Short and succinct, just the way I like it.” She brandishes the book at Kira with a pleased grin.

“You mean, just like mission reports should be?” Kira has only been living at the guild hall for a couple days, but she’s already becoming accustomed to Allison’s penchant for efficiency. She could take a shower in under three minutes! Including washing her hair! Kira knew this guild was on another level, but still.

“Exactly! See, you’ll be caught up in no time at all.” Allison flashes her dimples at her and leaves, probably to test out her newly sharpened knives on some unsuspecting training dummies. Kira sneaks a peek at the book in her hands. It doesn’t look like something Lydia would approve of. Mainly because it is actually written in English. Stiles might go for it, though.

_The History of Guilds_ by Theodoric Hollow, Kira reads on the cover, which is covered with an animated picture of three elemental mages throwing magic at each other. “The cover is the most interesting thing about that book.” She jumps at Lydia’s voice. “I don’t understand how Allison can read that trash. He’s a terrible writer.”

“But he writes in English! And Allison said it was short and sweet.” Kira clutches the book to her chest. She needs this book. For sanity’s sake.

Lydia arches an unimpressed eyebrow. “Like that should stop you. Me and Stiles worked hard on those translations you know.”

“I know, but I think maybe I should branch out a little. I really appreciate all you guys are doing for me, and I know I have a lot to learn. So maybe this will help.” If Kira reads one more word of translated archaic Latin, she might puke. The graphic pictures in the Bestiary did not help.

“I guess it will do for a bit of light reading. At least he has his facts straight. Be sure not to absorb any of his bad grammar or syntax, okay? Oh, and your mom called. She invited us all over for dinner at the new house. I expect you to be done with that book by then. You can read this next.” Lydia hands her a book that weighs more than her. She takes it with trepidation.

“You can thank me later. I’ll see you at dinner.” And with that, she leaves Kira to her fate. Death by books. Well, it could be worse. And secretly she’s enjoying the way the members of the guild care so much about her. She can tell this is one of the ways Stiles and Lydia are trying to protect her. She knew she made the right decision when picking this guild. And she got Stiles’ autograph!

She tips the heavy book to the side and picks up Allison’s book again. It feels like a feather in her hands. As she begins to read, certain passages jump out at her.

_It began, as little in history does, at the beginning._

_Magic has been on this earth long before the first mage, werewolf, or vampire came to be. This is evident in the power of nemetons, leylines, and planet cycles, which have influenced magic for millennia. These were wild times, when magic circulated with no thought for being controlled or contained._

_…Eventually, humans came to populate the earth. The very first humans had no magic, nor did they seem to be aware it existed. Instead, they focused on day-to-day survival while magic churned in the earth, air, and very ether surrounding them…_

_Legend says that magic felt itself fading and chose to transfer to a new host. I believe it simply grew bored with the way things were. Magic is, by its very nature, a wild thing. It wanted to see what these humans could do with its power…_

_…The non-magical humans did not trust those born with magic at first, for such great power was considered too much for any one person. There were periodic hunts for anyone perceived magical throughout these chaotic times. The most apparent example in North America was the Salem Witch Trials, although such hysteria has been documented in the western United States as early as 1400 BCE. The events in Salem brought anti-magic sentiments to the forefront, and as a result magical humans often decided to go into hiding, preferring the company of their own kind..._

_…The groups of magical humans would eventually splinter into separate communities based on the type of magic they had been gifted with. Those with magic they could physically wield were called mages. Those who could manipulate magic to shapeshift were called werebeings, and the very first humans magic created were called vampires, for they could live as long as they chose and subsisted off blood. These three types of magical humans, eventually becoming part of the umbrella term supernatural creatures during the reforms set in place after the Supernatural Wars, were the most numerous and therefore the most powerful._

_Magic showed up in other forms as well. Fae, pixies, demons, selkies, centaurs, banshees, and kitsunes are some other well-known supernatural creatures known to interact with the non-magical population. For a more detailed list of supernatural creatures, see the index._

_…As society developed, some magical families rose to great prominence and became known as royal families. Those specific to California are the Lupa, the Airlie, and the Varkol families, which represent werewolves, banshees, and vampires respectively._

_It is said that each royal family had its own territory with its own laws, army, and traditions. This was not to last. Some of the royal families, although no one knows which ones for sure, were not satisfied with their reach and sought to expand into other kingdoms. War waged across the lands in what would come to be known as the Supernatural Wars…_

_…In the absence of power left by the death of the royal families, the Supernatural Wars took on new heights. Werewolves, mages, vampires, fae, each supernatural creature attempted to fill the vacuum of power and each was implicated as they committed atrocities without limitation. Soon, the mages found themselves at a disadvantage. They did not have the pack mentality present in so many of the supernatural creatures. Mages often fought alone and without any significant forces backing them up, unlike the packs werewolves ran in, or the covens of vampires, or even the ancient clans of the banshees and the fae._

_Thus, guilds were born._

“Wow,” Kira murmurs. “Magic is so cool!”

She keeps reading, barely noticing the lengthening shadows on the wall. She ends up 10 minutes late for dinner.

 

* * *

 

Once upon a time, Derek had resigned himself to the life of a hermit. He had wondered around for a while, working odd jobs here and there, never staying in one place for too long. Werewolf strength came in handy for lifting heavy loads or carrying construction beams. He enjoyed any job that did not require much thought.

And now here he sits, author of a tiny book about guilds of all things, regretting every life choice he’s ever made as he listens to Erica and Isaac bicker in the backseat of the Camaro. At least Boyd, who is the only one allowed to sit shotgun since Erica had spilled an ice cream cone all over the leather seats and Isaac decided it was a good idea to eat nachos while in a moving vehicle a while back, acts like a normal person who doesn’t put his feet on the dash at every opportunity.

Erica shrieks, rudely interrupting his thoughts. “Isaac, if you don’t stop making water balloons this instant-”

Derek slams on the brakes. His voice is deadly calm. “What is going on back there? We have rules in this car. One of those rules is no magic of any sort in, on, or anywhere near the car.”

He doesn’t need his sensitive hearing to pick up Isaac’s muttered, “Another rule is no screwing in the car, but just last week Erica-”

He’s cut off by a sharp slap to the back of the head, courtesy of Erica. Boyd keeps a straight face, but Derek can smell the mortification rolling off him. He rolls his eyes, praying for patience.

“Where are we going?” Derek welcomes Boyd’s change of subject.

“Beacon Hills.” He eases the car back into gear, his eyes on the road ahead.

Erica is indignant on his behalf, which he appreciates really, but it’s unnecessary. “What?! After all this time? Derek-”

He cuts her off with a curt, “The guild there defeated a Nogitsune.”

Dead silence falls upon the car. Derek takes a moment to enjoy it. It’s a rarity with this group.

“That’s impossible. You can’t _defeat_ a Nogitsune. It’s just a rumor gotten out of hand.” Despite her confident words, there’s a note of uncertainty in Erica’s voice.

Derek checks on Isaac through the rearview mirror. He’s scrunched up against the door of the car with his hand on the handle, ready to bolt. Isaac hates most powerful magic. A demonic fox spirit certainly qualifies.

“This is no rumor. They killed it. Cora texted me and confirmed it.” Despite his estrangement from his family, Cora makes an effort to keep in contact with him, sending him texts of baby elephants and occasional updates on the goings-on of Beacon Hills. She never mentions the rest of the pack, and Derek doesn’t ask.

Derek catches Boyd smiling indulgently out of the corner of his eye and wonders why right before Erica chimes in again. “Wow, you know how to text? Why don’t you ever text us? Here, give me your phone. I’ll put my number into it.”

“Not in a million years.” He’d end up with a bedazzled case and a background of something embarrassing. Not to mention he saved all those pictures of baby elephants. Not that he likes that sort of thing. They’re just there for scientific purposes.

“In all seriousness, Derek, will you be alright?” It’s only the steady calm on Boyd’s face that allows Derek to answer.

“If there’s a way to help Uncle-to help Peter, I have to find it. I owe him that much at least.” The three mages, used to Derek’s broodiness about his family although they don’t know why, leave him alone for the rest of the ride. Derek is grateful for them in his life.

He hasn’t heard much of the Beacon Hills Guild outside of Beacon Hills, but if they were able to defeat a Nogitsune, they must be something else. Cora sometimes mentions them in her texts. Most often concerning a banshee, a hunter, an alpha, and something called a stiles.

But since he found out about Peter’s…predicament, he’s been determined to help in any way he can. He’s been running from his past mistakes for too long. Hopefully, this guild has the answers he needs.

 

* * *

 

Scott rubs his belly contentedly as he makes his way to his room. There’s nothing like a guild dinner to put them all in good spirits. There had been a bit of a manic edge to the celebrations, and Scott had to touch Stiles every few minutes to reassure himself he was still there, but the food was great, the company better, and everything had turned out for the best. Scott couldn’t ask for more.

He walks by Stiles’ door and pauses. He smells the cloud of sorrow practically coating this whole area. Maybe…he reaches out a hand for the doorknob and hesitates. Would Stiles even want to talk to him? Scott steels his resolve and opens the door. He and Stiles were long past the knocking phase.

“Hey.” Stiles is sitting at his desk, laptop open. He’s updating the Bestiary with the new information.

“Hey. I was wondering if you wanted to talk.” Allison constantly tells Scott how terrible he is at this sort of thing, and he thinks she has a point. Granted, she’s terrible at it too.

This causes Stiles to look up from the screen. “Not really. Why, is there something on your mind? Or do you want to wax poetic about Allison some more? It’s been a while dude, you’re slacking.” The smile on Stiles’ face doesn’t come close to reaching his eyes. Scott is surprised when he feels a rush of anger at the sight.

He resists the urge to point out the sharp cheekbones on Stiles’ face. He still remembers after Stiles’ mom died when food was a chore for Stiles, when each bite looked like it took monumental effort. He told Scott that he couldn’t taste anything. And Scott, in all his nine year old wisdom, decided from that moment until Stiles put on some weight, he would cover Stiles’ food in hot sauce. Not only could Stiles taste his food, he had an excuse for the tears running down his gaunt cheeks. Only when they were alone though. Stiles would never cry where people could see him.

The Stiles in front of him now is so similar to the one from his memories that Scott blurts out, “I need you to survive.”

Stiles, half-rising out of his chair in concern for Scott’s contemplative silence, suddenly sits back down heavily. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

Scott keeps going, the words pouring out of him. “I know I don’t say it enough or maybe I never have, but I need you Stiles. And I’m so sorry it took all this to make me see it. I made a promise to be a better alpha, a better boyfriend, a better friend. But I didn’t see how much you were hurting. And I’m tired of you paying for my mistakes.”

Stiles stares flabbergasted. “Scott…”

“So please, Stiles. I know I have no idea what you’re going through right now, but please, please don’t shut me out. Talk to me.” Scott’s voice cracks on the last words.

And Stiles, Stiles reaches for him like he’s drowning.

“I wanted to go home,” he whispers later. “When I was dying in that cave, all I could think about was going home and seeing everyone again.”

Stiles’ voice is small and scared, his hair in complete disarray, and Scott loves him so, so much. “You’re home,” he says firmly. “You’re home. Welcome back, buddy. We missed you.”

Stiles snorts wetly, and his arms are a vice around Scott’s back. “I missed you too.”

 

* * *

 

They lay on Stiles’ bed, just like old times.

Because he’s feeling exhausted and wrung out, Stiles decides to confess a secret. Scott will never tell. “I’ve tried ignoring it. But the fact of the matter is, I don’t know how to be human.”

“You do it better than any of us,” Scott says gruffly, his eyes darting around the room (looking for an escape, Stiles knows, because Scott hates when Stiles talks bad about himself). Stiles laughs because even in this state, he can still read Scott like a book.

He flashes back to his mother’s funeral, when he felt cold and dead and scared and Scott had taken his hand and squeezed it.

A tear leaks out of the corner of his eye. “It chose me, Scott. Out of everyone. It knew what I am. What I’m capable of. You have no idea the things I’ve done.”

“Sure I do.” Scott’s blunt declaration catches Stiles off guard. 

“You do?” Stiles can’t quite keep the astonishment out of his voice.

Scott nods. “On our way to get you, I tried to figure out its motive for possessing you, since surely a banshee or werewolf or hunter would be better for pure destruction purposes.”

Stiles had half a mind to show Scott just how destructive he could be. As if sensing his ire, Scott clears his throat and continues. “And I finally figured it out. It needed magic, or at least access to magic. It was thinking I’ll pick the weakest member of the weakest guild and take advantage of him. But guess what? It miscalculated badly. What it didn’t count on was the supposedly weakest member of the weakest guild being Stiles fucking Stilinski.”

Scott’s voice is shaking and Stiles makes a wordless sound of distress, but Scott waves him off. “Let me get through this.” Stiles covers Scott’s hand, clenched tightly in the sheets, with his own. “Stiles, I don’t need you to be anyone else other than who you are. I have always liked you the way you are. I mean, if you want to change, that’s fine. But you don’t owe anyone anything. And I kind of like the fact that so few people get to see the real you.”

Scott makes a painful choking sound, and his hands tremble in Stiles’. “It makes me feel special,” he says with a watery chuckle.

“So you can say all the crap about how you’re a terrible person, but I know you down to your bones, Stiles Stilinski. I may bitch and moan about it, but there’s nothing you could say or do that will drive me away.”

Stiles doesn’t know what to do with this information. No one has ever said anything like this to him before. So he goes for his old standby: deflection. “What if me and Allison fall into an all-consuming love and elope together?”

“I’ll be waiting with a fruit basket when you get back.”

“A fruit basket? That’s kind of cheap wedding gift. I’m sure my new wife Allison would prefer some butterfly knives. And you know I have expensive tastes.”

“Don’t I know it. I’ll never make the mistake of buying unfrosted Pop-Tarts again, even if they were on sale.”

“I mean, that was just un-American of you, Scott. You can’t blame me for-”

“You could have just asked me to go out and get the right ones.”

“Please, and have you whine for days? No, thank you. Plus, my way was way more fun.”

“For you, maybe.”

They grin goofily at each other. The days-old stubble on Scott’s chin scrapes against Stiles’ cheeks as they hug it out again.

Allison’s voice interrupts their bro time. “Are you two done yet? We’re dying out here!”

“Come in,” Scott calls and everyone piles onto the bed, parents and all. Stiles dodges a wayward elbow and gets a foot in the groin instead. He’s writhing around cupping his crotch when he hears Lydia ask softly, “Are you okay, Stiles? Are you leaving the guild?”

And maybe Lydia asked the question, but although the tangle of people persists in jostling and poking for a good position in what is basically a dogpile, they all appear to be attentively listening.

“I’ve invested too much time in your training to let you guys give me the slip now.” He looks up to see all of them staring at him in various forms of relief and joy. “If any of you left, I would never find someone else to fill the void.” He winces at the frosty frowns directed his way. “Too soon?”

They file out one by one. “Wait! What’s the acceptable time limit for jokes? Guys? Guys!”

 

* * *

 

Gerard gazes out over the water and smiles.

Kate’s answering grin makes Peter’s hackles rise.

Gerard talks to Peter like a small child. “Your next order is going after the McCall pack or the Beacon Hills Guild or whatever they’re calling themselves these days. You are not to harm my granddaughter, but bring her to me. I can make her see the error of her ways.”

Frankly, Peter does not care one whit about guilds, McCalls, or Allison Argent.

“Peter Hale.” Peter fights the magic pulling at his being with every ounce of his will, but ultimately fails to resist Kate’s ironclad command. “You will kill every member of the Beacon Hills Guild and its guild-adjacent members except Allison Argent. You have 72 hours to complete this task. Go. Now.”

Peter’s mind flashes to the boy with amber eyes. The Nogitsune was nothing but dried remnants on the floor. He takes great pleasure in imagining reducing Kate and Gerard to such a state. But it is a foolish hope. One he has long since given up now, when he discovered he was alone with nothing but his teeth, claws, and a heart full of hate for this woman who chained him and the pack who left him behind.

Letting out a snarl and a reluctant nod to show he understood her commands, he lopes off into the night. When he reaches a small clearing, he stops. Arms stretched out on either side of him, he howls his desperation and rage into the wind. Some small part of him hopes for redemption, for a second chance with his pack, but he ruthlessly squashes it before it can grow. There is nothing for him now but blood and pain and death.

Miles away, Stiles sits bolt upright in bed, the last vestiges of a pain-ridden howl echoing through his head.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not very happy with this chapter, but I'm tired of staring at it so here you go. Please note the new tags. There are descriptions of epilepsy and panic attacks by an author who has neither. I am open to suggestions/comments, so please let me know if I can improve them in any way!
> 
> As always, a big thank you to those who read, subscribed, gave kudos, and left comments. I really appreciate it!

Noshiko surveys her living room turned conference room with relish. Chris, Natalie, Melissa, and the sheriff had walked in like they were on trial for murder but were now sitting in their assigned seats at the long row table (acquired for $2 at a garage sale!) chatting happily. Noshiko herself sat at the head of the table, with Ken on her right side.

Noshiko bangs her gavel, a gift from Ken for their fifth wedding anniversary, down on the table, interrupting their conversations. “I now call to order the first official Single Parents Club meeting. Ken will be taking minutes. The first order of business is changing the name. As you can see, neither I nor Ken are single parents. Therefore, I motion the name be changed to Parent Armada effective immediately.”

“I second the motion,” Ken says. He drags a box out from under the table and sets it down with a flourish. “I even made t-shirts. I had to guess at the sizes, so I hope they all fit.”

Noshiko peers inside. There are indeed six t-shirts of varying colors and sizes with “Parent Armada” written across them in big, bold lettering. Underneath it is a collection of ships with their names printed on the side. That sneaky bastard. He looks pleased that he managed to surprise her.

Melissa holds one up, staring at it with a weak smile. “These are, um, well, they’re something else.”

Natalie, already wearing hers, beams. “Aren’t they? You don’t mind if I take the blue, do you Melissa? The purple would go better with your hair.”

Chris and the sheriff are fighting over who gets to wear the red shirt. Noshiko has already claimed the black one for herself, and Ken chose the white one.

“Order, order,” she calls half-heartedly, secretly enjoying seeing two grown men fight over a t-shirt.

The sheriff ends up winning the fight using some truly underhanded tactics. Apparently, pinching is kosher in t-shirt battles. Chris is stuck with the eye-watering orange. He pulls it over his head with as much dignity as he can muster.

“Okay, now that the name change has been taken care of, let’s move on to the latest guild news. Kira seems to be adjusting very well to guild life. I was worried leaving her magical education in the hands of two teenagers, but I must admit I am pleased with her progress. Stiles and Lydia are doing a wonderful job.” She sees the sheriff puff out his chest at that, while Natalie sticks a smug nose in the air.

Ken had been disheartened that Kira had chosen to continue her education elsewhere. He was hired at Beacon Hills High School as a history teacher, and she knew he was looking forward to embarrassing Kira every chance he got. Noshiko was secretly relieved. Kira could not yet control her powers, and could easily injure innocent bystanders.

Melissa speaks up. “I know what you mean. I was completely against it when Scott dropped out of school after he formed the guild, but I think he’s learning more from his experiences and the people around him than he ever could in a classroom. Stiles even made syllabi so I could compare his newfound lesson plans with the BHHS ones and the difference in quality is remarkable.”

Noshiko and Ken had also received a syllabus for Kira compiled by both Stiles and Lydia. It was extensive to say the least. “I was also told Scott and Stiles would take care of the paperwork for her entry into the guild. They said something about bending over?”

“Oh, is that who they’re kicking out?” Natalie says like this makes perfect sense, while the sheriff abandons his previous proud posture and settles for the classic parental exasperation pose of hand to forehead.

“Guild rules state you need ten members to form an official guild,” the sheriff begins apologetically. “And they only had four when they started. So they forged some papers. Scott and Stiles were in charge of picking the names, a mistake I imagine Lydia and Allison will never repeat again. Then they recruited six random people to be around with fake IDs when the guild inspector showed up to confirm their application. He didn’t even flinch when he double-checked the names with the IDs.”

Natalie turns pleading eyes on her and Ken. “We didn’t find out about it until after the fact and by then it was too late. If we said or did anything, the SSC would discover the forgeries, disband the guild, and punish them.”

“If it helps, they seem to hate paperwork even more than the sheriff’s office-”

“Watch it.”

“-because they just filed it away no problem,” Chris adds grumpily.

“What are the names?” Noshiko asks, not sure if she wants to know.

“Ben Dover, Richard Head, Anita Lay, Mona Lott, Harry Sachs, and Randy Guy,” Natalie lists, shamefaced. In fact, they all look like children who have been scolded.

“I-I see,” Noshiko says.

Ken snickers into his hand. “Classic!”

Noshiko elbows him in the soft spot under his ribs and barrels on without waiting for him to catch his breath. She will endeavor to erase the last few minutes from her mind. “Chris, any news on the hunter front?”

Chris clears his throat, uncomfortable with all the eyes on him, but obviously glad at the change of subject from their children’s delinquent ways. “Actually, yes. There have been some concerning movements in the northwest sector. I sent a team to check it out. They should be back within a day or two.”

“What kind of concerning movements?” The sheriff leans forward, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen.

“The family kind,” Chris says gruffly. “Gerard and Kate were spotted in the area.”

“Shit,” Natalie mutters, and Noshiko has to agree.

Although the Argents have lost their power over the years as agreements between human and supernatural governments came to fruition, their name still held a kind of sway in certain segments of the population. The original purpose of hunters was to police the boundary between the supernatural and the human worlds. Any regular human found trying to accomplish nefarious deeds with supernatural means was put down. And any supernatural creature intending to lord their power over the humans was wiped out. They were essentially assassins, not officially sanctioned, but existing nonetheless.

And the most infamous of all the Argents is Gerard, a man renowned for his hatred of all things supernatural and his ruthless yet brilliant tactics in getting exactly what he wanted. He was careful to keep his spats with the supernatural world small and contained to keep off any official radar, and since the human government denied any knowledge of hunter activities, they were of no help.

“Have you notified the SSC about this?” Melissa wonders, but Noshiko knows the answer before Chris even opens his mouth.

“Of course I have. I’ve warned them multiple times. But the problem is the SSC doesn’t see a couple of measly humans as a real threat to supernatural society. They say they’ll send someone out, but it’s not a priority of theirs, so it ends up being some hapless mage just of out university with no experience dealing with hunters. Gerard eats them for breakfast.” Noshiko is personally acquainted with at least four members of the SSC and sadly she can see this happening.

Mages are especially susceptible to the line of thought that they are better and stronger than humans because they have no obvious weaknesses regular humans can exploit, like werewolves with wolfsbane or vampires with oak.

“I take it you already informed the guild. Kira came to me this morning asking for her own katana.” Noshiko had nearly wept with pride.

“I was wondering why I spotted Stiles outside the house at three in the morning. He was laying wards, wasn’t he?” Melissa taps her lips in thought.

The sheriff grimaces. “I didn’t think our houses could get anymore warded. As soon as we got back from the Nogitsune fiasco, he started making runes left and right. He passed out twice from exhaustion.”

“Runes were the Nogitsune’s hobby. It’s not surprising he picked it up. Magical possession almost always leaves leftovers behind. In Stiles’ case, he got a slight spark of magic and some of the Nogitsune’s knowledge,” Noshiko points out.

Ken looks up from his laptop where he’s frantically typing up the minutes. “Do you have any idea what Gerard is planning?”

Chris sighs. “None. But if he’s in the area, there’s a good chance he’s found out about me and Allison. There’s no love lost between me and my family, but Allison is a different story. He might try to go after her. And Kate’s with him, which is another huge problem. She’s less well-known but just as ruthless as Gerard. And her hatred of the supernatural far exceeds his. If they are working together, it would be best to prepare ourselves for the worst.”

The meeting that had started out with lighthearted chatting has taken a surprisingly grim turn. The bang of her gavel as she adjourns the meeting sounds hollow. Well, no matter. Any threat to this guild will have to go through them first. She smoothes a hand down her new shirt. Look at me, Rhys, she thinks. I’m _living_.

 

* * *

 

“Noshiko, Ken, wait up,” calls Natalie, hurrying forward to catch up to their long strides. They stop and allow her to finally reach them.

“I’m sorry to bother you after the meeting, but you left before I could give you these.” She holds up three intricate wooden carvings.

Ken takes the one she hands to him with a low whistle. “Wow, this is fantastic!” It’s a perfect wooden replica of a globe, complete with raised continents. It’s cliché, Natalie knows, but all she had to go on was that he liked history.

Noshiko is examining hers with a critical eye, a lifelike carving of a nine-tailed fox in mid-leap, and Natalie holds her breath. “It truly is a work of art,” she says at last.

“I’m so glad you think so! These are my welcoming gifts to you! I made one for Kira as well.” She hands them the last carving, a fox that seems normal from a glance except for the lightning zig-zags that make up its fur.

“I had no idea you were so talented, Natalie,” Ken says, still gazing down at the globe in his hands.

She can feel her cheeks start to burn. “Oh, it’s nothing really. Something I picked up after the divorce. Who knew taking a sharp knife to a piece of wood could be so therapeutic?”

Ken backs away a step or two and Noshiko grins in approval. She gets another enthusiastic thank you from Ken and another more subdued but no less sincere one from Noshiko before they depart. Natalie watches them for a moment, silhouetted against the California blue sky, glad there’s someone in town who doesn’t know her ex-husband.

He was so kind, everybody said when they found out.

If he was so kind, why couldn’t he keep it in his pants? Or at least that’s what she wanted to think, and she did think it sometimes in the rare moments when anger overtook numbness.

But mostly she wondered if she had been the one to corrupt him somehow. This man who still believed in saying hello to strangers on the street and who volunteered at the local soup kitchen.

Surely it said something about her nature, about her bitterness and melancholy and general disdain for the world, that such a kind man should do such a terrible thing. When she passes people who knew him, she feels their accusing eyes on her, telling her how she drove him to it, how all the negativity inside her she tried so hard to hide seeped through her skin, how he breathed it in when they were sleeping.

She’s relieved Lydia is so different from her, is someone who isn’t afraid to show her true colors. Relieved she gets to have a relationship with her daughter at all, knowing how she treated her and probably how she still treats her.

She has to do her part to be worthy of such a grand life. A few wooden trinkets and a group of broken hearts seems like a good start.

 

* * *

 

The sheriff curses and cuts off the engine to the cruiser. He can already see Stiles in a booth through the grimy diner window. That meeting went longer than he thought. It’s one of those rare days both their schedules are agreeable and an even rarer day when Stiles has allowed him to eat artery-clogging food free of nagging or consequence.

He peels off his hard-won shirt and sets it on the seat behind him before exiting the car and jogging up to the door. He waves hello to Julia at the counter, making a beeline for Stiles’ table. He does the cursory once-over of Stiles as he sits down, taking in the bags under his eyes, the three layers of shirts despite the seasonable temperature, and the way his moles stand out on his pale face. He can see Stiles doing the same to him. God knows what he sees. Between the whole thing with the Nogitsune and now the Argents, along with his normal sheriff duties policing the regular humans of Beacon Hills, he wouldn’t mind pulling a Rip Van Winkle and sleeping for years.

“Did you order yet?” The sheriff doesn’t bother picking up one of the menus stacked behind the salt and pepper shakers.

“Yep. Got your usual. Breakfast for lunch, all washed down with a nice cold chocolate shake. The saturated fats of champions.” Stiles fiddles with the paper straw wrappers, twirling one around his fingers in an endless loop.

The sheriff raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Hopefully without the dry toast and vegan sausage patties.”

“Just this once. And they taste the same.” Stiles attempts a grin but it falls spectacularly flat.

The sheriff snorts. “Hardly.”

They sit in silence. The sheriff casts his mind frantically about for something to say, but all he can think of is are you okay, please be okay, please be happy, let me help you, just tell me what to do and he knows Stiles doesn’t want or need to hear that right now.

“How’s Allison holding up?” He realizes immediately that this is not a safe topic of discussion from the way Stiles’ shoulders come up.

“She’s part of a guild full of supernatural creatures and her aunt and grandpa are psychotic bastards hell-bent on destroying said supernatural creatures using any means possible. How would you be?” Stiles won’t meet his eyes.

The sheriff tries not to feel hurt at Stiles’ tone. He’s under a lot of stress right now, he tells the knot in his stomach, and it loosens slightly.

Thankfully, Julia sidles up to their table with their food. “One breakfast special and milkshake for the good sheriff, and one turkey club with extra pickles and three olives for the cutie sulking in the corner.”

“Thanks, Julia,” the sheriff says with a forced smile, and hears Stiles’ mumbled thanks from across the table that might as well be as wide as a football field for all the good it’s doing.

Stiles picks at his food the whole time, peeling off pieces of tomato and shredding his lettuce into tiny pieces. The sheriff, used to Stiles’ strange way of eating, doesn’t bat an eye. It isn’t until Stiles gives up halfway through his sandwich that the sheriff decides to take action, suddenly exhausted from seeing this specter of a person masquerading as his son.

“Here.” He shoves his milkshake roughly at Stiles. It tips over and spills all over the table, booth, floor, and Stiles’ lap. The glass cup, free of its gooey burden, takes that moment to fall in love with gravity and kisses the floor with a loud crash. The sound echoes throughout the diner. Abruptly, all conversation stops.

Stiles sits there for a moment, letting the remains of the milkshake begin to coagulate in his lap, then the cold must register because he’s up and out of the booth with a high-pitched shriek, which naturally draws the attention of the rest of the diners who were trying politely to avert their attention.

The waitress hurries over, and Stiles is speaking in the rapid-fire staccato he uses to cover up emotions ranging from true embarrassment to panic and fear, dabbing at his lap with napkins and telling Julia it was his fault, I’m so sorry, can I pay for the glass?

The sheriff just sits there, blinking stupidly at the commotion like a lizard in the sun. Stiles goes off somewhere and returns with wet jeans and a rueful expression, but the sheriff is still sitting there. He is rooted to his seat, the grease from the meal clogging his throat, imagining it surrounding his body in a thick, viscous yellow slime he cannot escape from no matter how hard he struggles.

“-ad? Dad!” The sheriff startles. Stiles is staring at him. The sheriff is grateful at the concern he sees in his son’s face, although there are other things there as well he’d rather not think about.

He tests out his legs and finds he can move again, so he gets up when Stiles suggests they leave and throws a twenty on the counter, digging in his pocket for the extra five to leave Julia for the glass, and follows Stiles out the door.

They stand outside the diner for a moment, and if the table was a football field the space between them now feels more like Texas. He claps his hand on his son’s shoulder and tries to will the enormity of his love for this wonderful boy through the point of contact until Stiles understands.  

Judging by Stiles’ slight flinch, he only succeeds in clapping his shoulder too hard. He moves in for a hug, but he’s too late, Stiles has already turned to walk away.

The sheriff stands there outside the diner until old Mr. Goldman bumps into him from behind and starts complaining about his neighbor letting his dog shit on his lawn without cleaning it up, and what are the police good for anyway, if they can’t even make people pick up their dog’s shit.

That’s right, the sheriff wants to say. I can’t do shit.

 

* * *

 

Stiles is shivering in the heat of the afternoon sun when he approaches the nemeton. He trails his fingers along the sides and man, did he miss talki-

The nemeton zaps Stiles. “Ow! What the hell, you twig? I know I haven’t been around in a while but in case it escaped your notice I’ve been too busy being possessed by an evil fox spirit and…Are you sulking?”

Its sullen silence speaks for itself. But Stiles was sort of expecting this and came prepared.

“Here, I made you some coffee. God knows why you like the stuff. And this right here,” he holds up the thermos of coffee. “This is a travesty. Coffee is meant to be black. I must have put half a pound of sugar in here. And don’t even get me started on the cream.”

Despite his harsh handling of the thermos, he pours some out into one of the mugs he brought, blows on it and pours some gently onto the mouth drawn on the top of the nemeton’s trunk courtesy of Scott, who said he was tired of talking to a faceless thing. As with all things Scott, the nemeton tolerated it but made its displeasure known when they went running in the woods for training and Scott fell down 37 times from raised tree roots.

“It helps talking to you, you know?” Stiles’ nails make a dull clinking sound on the thermos and he idly does an inventory of his things, a habit he developed after the Nogitsune. Wallet, check. Cellphone, check. Keys. Wait. No keys. He digs around frantically in his pockets, turning them inside out for good measure and checks the ground around him to see if they fell out. Nothing. Okay, no need to panic. You drove here after the diner. You took the keys out of the ignition. Shit, what did he do with them after that? He can’t remember if he put them in his pocket or carried them in his hand. Or maybe he left them in the car?

The fist in his chest, always an opportunist, _squeezes_. The world is suddenly devoid of air and fuck astronauts, he can tell them exactly what space feels like when the helmet comes off and there’s nothing surrounding you and you can’t breathe and you can’t speak and here come the pins and needles, gather round folks, you won’t want to miss this, local boy demonstrates his ability to freak out over absolutely _nothing_ , such an amazing feat not everybody can do it, yeah that’s right, only 1 out of 75 poor suckers can do this, it’s not for everyone, keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times.

He finally gets a hold of his breathing, becomes aware of his fingers digging rivets into the dirt, the wetness in his eyes, the hoarseness of his throat. He forces himself to say the words, as halting as they are, remembering a time he did this for Scott. “Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater. Had-Had a wife but couldn’t kee-keep her.” Jesus Christ, nursery rhymes are so morbid.

He shifts from his fetal position on the ground—when did that happen?—and the back of his hand brushes the nemeton.

He gets a sudden rush of images, so fast they make his head spin. “Stop it! I’m fine.”

The nemeton projects a picture of a grove of oak trees, and Stiles shakes his head. “No, no, there’s no need to call the guild. I’m fine now. It was just a panic attack. You know I get those sometimes. I don’t want to bother them with something so trivial.”

Stiles gets an image of sap running extremely slowly down a tree trunk. “Watch it, you overgrown weed. I’m not being obtuse, I’m just telling it like it is.”

The nemeton shows him an acorn falling from an oak tree. “I just saw my dad at the diner. We had lunch. I suspect Melissa was involved somehow. He’s probably back at the station already. Besides, I think he freaks out more about my panic attacks than I do when I’m having them.”

They fall silent. The trembles eventually go away and Stiles basks in the nemeton’s quiet strength. He’s just about to doze off when he hears, “You’re not seriously going to fall asleep out here, are you?” and nearly jumps three feet in the air.

It’s Lydia, her eyes bright with laughter and her arms full of what looks like his and Scott’s entire wardrobe combined. “Jesus, Lydia, warn a guy.”

Lydia steps closer, trailing her hand along the nemeton as she goes. Since he still has his own hand on the nemeton, Stiles receives the message as well. A single bright red leaf, shining brilliantly in the sun. Lydia pats what would be the nemeton’s head if you’re going by Scott’s stupid drawing. “Thanks, nemmie.”

“Don’t call him that! He’s a 1000 year old tree!” The nemeton exercises its traitorous tendencies and shoves a picture of a weeping willow at Stiles. “Fine, I won’t defend your honor. Enjoy being talked to like a 5 year old.”

Lydia begins unfurling her burden. “What’s with the walking closet impression?”

Lydia scoffs. “I brought these for you.” She holds out three jackets, one puffy overcoat, and three quilts.

“Um, Lydia, it’s like 70 degrees out, and I already have a jacket and two shirts.” He plucks at said jacket to emphasize his point.

Lydia gives the sky her best heaven help me face before rounding on Stiles. “I know you still have problems with the cold. It’s hilarious and kind of adorable that you thought you could hide it from me.” Lydia smiles in a perfect imitation of an angel. Stiles wills his body not to make any sudden movements. “If you don’t put on every single article of clothing I brought for you, I will not be responsible for my actions.”

Stiles hurriedly throws on all the jackets, the coat, and snuggles into the quilts. When he’s finished, he looks like a giant puffball marshmallow of a human. He leans back against the nemeton with Lydia’s help, since he can’t really move his arms all that well. He is sure to uncover a finger and touch it to the bark so he can still follow the conversation. It’s warm against his skin.

He knows he doesn’t need to say thank you to Lydia because she already knows it, but he resolves to bake her favorite lemon bars for dinner tonight. He’s drowsily sifting through the pantry in his mind, running over the ingredients they might have and the ones he might need, catching snatches of conversation here and there. Images of leaves falling from trees, saplings starting to take root, and always, always a grove of trees in the background, tall and strong and proud. For the first time in a long time, Stiles feels warm.

 

* * *

 

Erica gapes at the slightly crooked building. “ _This_ is where the famous Beacon Hills Guild lives?” She kicks at an unruly patch of foxglove surrounding the house, a generous term when applied to this place. “Talk about a dump. I’ve seen kelpie shit that looks better than this.”

Boyd chuckles under his breath as if he can’t help it, no doubt delighted by her fierceness. Derek doesn’t hear him over his own explosive groan, and Erica mentally tallies, _Boyd: 43_ , _Derek: 5_.Really, Boyd gets away with too much around here. He’s lucky Erica loves him so much.

Erica had felt the tingle of wards pass over her skin as they got within fifty feet of the house. Those were nice ones. A pleasant passing breeze as opposed to the usual static electricity. Pretty impressive for a guild that doesn’t boast one true mage among its members.

“Please try to make a good first impression, you three,” Derek says, complete with his three-finger point and squint. He faces the door as if facing the guillotine. Erica’s eyes follow the path of his hand as he raises it, lets it fall, then raises it again, before letting it fall a final time. Erica meets Boyd’s eyes, nodding her confirmation at what she finds there. Derek has been carrying the guilt for so long, the very idea of even the slightest possibility of letting it go terrifies him. Isaac, always sensitive to the slightest emotional change in the air, shuffles nervously behind them. They stand on the porch for what feels like hours.

Mercifully, one of the guild members comes to their rescue by throwing open the door. Erica eyes her deceptively slim build and cheerful dimples. The Chinese ring dagger she’s spinning on her finger is superfluous. Erica can already tell she’d be a worthy opponent. “Can I help you?”

And whoa, Derek’s eyes are flashing blue, his claws are extending, and seriously what a hypocrite, Erica thinks as she, Boyd, and Isaac struggle to hold him back. Judging by the defensive stance and suddenly severe expression on the girl, along with the appearance of about half a dozen more weapons (where was she hiding those?) they failed at that good first impression.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve attacking a guild on their own property.” Isaac loses his grip on Derek’s arm and lunges for him again. He gains a face full of dagger for his efforts, pointy side first.

And Erica has officially had enough. Isaac puts on a brave face, but sweat is beading on his brow and his hand is clenching and unclenching at his side. “Stop,” she screams, not sure who she is addressing.

Of course neither Derek or the girl listen. Well, Erica can say she tried to solve this peacefully if it comes down to it. Boyd, preternaturally aware of her thoughts as always, grabs Isaac by the scruff of his neck and lets Derek go.

He’s lunging at the girl in an instant. She’s aiming her dagger at no doubt vital places. But neither get the chance to act because Erica is between them in an instant, her diamond flail swinging into existence almost instantaneously. She executes a perfect sweep, confident in Derek and the girl’s dodging skills. Sure enough, they both leap out of the way. Derek’s facial hair appears to be rapidly receding and the girl is standing there with a shocked look on her face.

Erica buffs her nails on her shirt, and the flail flickers away. She does like to make an impression. Just not necessarily a good one.

Boyd pushes Isaac gently forward. “Um, maybe we could stop fighting for a second?” He puts on his best sheepish smile, one Erica taught him specifically because when combined with his curls and baby blues, it made a devastating combination.

It’s super effective on Derek. The girl not so much if her stony face is any indication, but Erica notices the slight change of aim, now on less vital body parts.

Based on Derek’s constipated expression, this has something to do with his tragic past. “I apologize for my behavior,” he says stiffly. “You are an Argent, but that is no excuse for my actions. I hope you don’t hold it against me or my friends.”

An Argent, huh? That explains the affinity for deadly force. Most of the hunter clans aren’t well-regarded in supernatural communities for obvious reasons. They claim to protect ordinary humans from supernatural creatures, but often they act like extremist renegade types. They were frequently brought up at the guild meetings she used to attend as a justification for fully splitting off from regular humans.

The girl isn’t unaware of the history of her clan. Erica can read a world into that particular curl of lip. She fully lowers her weapons this time. “I see you’ve had the dubious pleasure of meeting a member of my family. Who was it? Gerard?”

“Kate,” Derek grinds the word out between clenched teeth.

Argent’s making a complicated face at the news, one part anger, two parts betrayal, and four parts pained grimace. “Ah,” is all she says.

Thankfully, they are spared of learning the origins of that expression by the arrival of a colt turned teenage boy, a sweet-faced girl, and a ginger.

The ginger takes one look at the situation and throws up her hands, and the sweet-faced girl smiles at them tentatively before the ginger fixes her with a narrow-eyed look. Then the girl crosses her arms in a laughable attempt at intimidation.

The gangly one scans the room. He bypasses the werewolf-hunter drama completely and immediately zeroes in on Erica. His hand twitches, probably preparing to reach for a weapon. Erica favors him with her best feral smile, something she picked up after traveling with Derek. Observant and cute. She licks her lips. Just her type.

Boyd radiates quiet amusement behind her as the boy startles. Too easy.

“Mages,” Erica hears the ginger mutter under her breath. “Elemental, by the looks of things.”

“Elementals? Which ones are those, again?” The sweet-faced girl cowers under the ginger’s glare.

“There are four types: water, fire, earth, and air. Their magic manifests in the form of weapons made from their respective elements. It relies heavily on visualization. Well, that’s the short version anyway. I see we need to step up our educational efforts.” The sweet-faced girl whimpers.

Erica, unconcerned with being caught out eavesdropping, asks, “Who’s the textbook?” and is completely ignored.

“This better be good, Allison. The cashier was just about to give me a 30% discount on all our groceries.”

“You do your grocery shopping at night?” This time, Erica receives a quelling look from the ginger. She gets the urge to fall at the ginger’s feet and confess every sin, only to be stomped on by her fabulous heels and like it. Argent’s defensive posture suggests a similar urge.

“Sorry, Lyds. It’s just a bit of a misunderstanding. The werewolf,” she gestures to him. “Derek,” he grunts out. “Right, Derek was wronged by my family and when he realized I was an Argent he understandably reacted without thinking.”

The ginger—Lyds?—looks 200% done with anything to do with the Argents. Erica can relate. “Fine. Then let’s start over.” She strides up to Isaac without pausing. Erica would interfere, but she can sense a fellow predator in their midst and has the good sense to stay out of the way. “Hello, I’m Lydia Martin, resident banshee of the Beacon Hills Guild. Nice to meet you,” she delicately drapes her hand in the air, and Isaac kisses the back of it with wide eyes.

“I-Isaac,” he squeaks out. “Isaac Lahey. Water mage.”

Erica decides to butt in before he spontaneously combusts. “I’m Erica Reyes, earth mage. And this is Vernon Boyd, goes by Boyd, a fire mage. And tall, dark, and grunty over there is Derek Hale, werewolf.”

This catches the boy’s attention. “Hale? As in the Hale pack? Dang, you guys show up everywhere.” Argent none too subtly kicks him in the shin. “Ow, okay, geez. I’m Stiles Stilinski. I have many titles in this guild, each grander than the last. The most obvious would be-”

“-resident spazz. I’m Allison Argent. I’m not sure what my role is exactly, but here I am.” Erica hardly hears her. _This_ is the one who defeated the Nogitsune? She glances around and Derek’s gobsmacked face, Boyd’s skeptical eyebrow, and Isaac’s slack jaw make her feel better about her doubt.

“I’m Kira Yukimura,” the one with the sweet face says. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m a kitsune.” She says it like she’s trying out the words for the first time. Erica has never met a kitsune before. They don’t tend to mingle with the magical population.

“Guys, a little help,” comes a voice from the doorway. Another boy staggers in, struggling under the weight of approximately a million grocery bags. This must be the werewolf and leader of the guild.

Stilinski winces. “You have the worst timing Scott. And you have the strength of like ten Stiles Stilinskis so having one more wouldn’t make much of a difference.”

Nevertheless, Argent, Martin, Yukimura, and Stilinski drift into the kitchen, beckoning for them to follow. The werewolf—“I’m Scott McCall, please call me Scott.”—doesn’t even flash his eyes, just gives them all a kind smile. The way he effortlessly draws Isaac into conversation suggests alpha to Erica. Meanwhile, Martin and Stilinski bicker about where best to hide the sweets from McCall, and Argent is apologizing profusely to Derek, who is regarding her with a furrowed brow. Seriously, what the hell? Boyd tugs at her sleeve and points to the bags.

Erica can’t imagine how this group of weirdos does anything productive in this town. But she trusts her boyfriend implicitly, so when he quietly asks Argent where he should put the green beans, Erica resigns herself to her fate, cops a feel of Stilinski’s bicep, and hangs the bananas on the banana hook.

 

* * *

 

Isaac likes it here. Scott is nice, and doesn’t mind when he “scrunches up like a turtle” as Erica put it one time. And Allison’s really pretty. So is Lydia. And Kira. And Stiles isn’t scary at all. When Isaac heard he defeated the Nogitsune, he expected to meet the most powerful mage he’d ever seen, but Stiles has barely a spark of magic.

He can smell garlic and just a hint of lemon from the kitchen where Stiles and Kira are cooking dinner. Spaghetti with meatballs. With garlic bread. And lemon bars for dessert. Isaac’s stomach gurgles loudly. It’s been forever since he’s had a proper homecooked meal.

He settles further into the couch, which appears to be trying to swallow him whole. It’s a great couch. He runs his fingers along the soft cloth. Terrible pattern, though. The bright orange and green paisley hurts his eyes. He feels the couch shift as Allison plops down next to him. She sees him eyeing the pattern and dimples at him. “I know it’s hideous but we got it for a steal. Lydia was insufferable for days.”

“I need to find my uncle,” Derek is saying. He’s standing against a corner of wall. Isaac would offer him a spot of couch but he kind of wants it all to himself and Allison. “He disappeared when I was fifteen and I haven’t seen him since.”

“And this concerns us…how?” Lydia cocks her head to the side cutely.

Isaac thinks her blasé tone is probably an act, judging by the way she scrunches her perfectly manicured toes in her sandals.

Derek clenches his jaw. Isaac feels a momentary pang of sympathy for Derek’s poor teeth. “I have reason to believe he’s under some kind of magical control.”

“We heard about your Nogitsune problem,” Erica adds. “And we figured you’d have some expertise in that area.”

Scott, Lydia, and Allison exchange looks. They have some sort of nonverbal argument and come to an agreement.

“There might be someone who can help you,” Scott says.

“Who?” Isaac doesn’t think he’s imagining the eager tone in Derek’s voice.

This time it’s Lydia who answers. “Deaton.”

Derek’s eyebrows almost disappear into his hairline. “Deaton as in Alan Deaton, the Hale emissary?”

“The very same,” Lydia says.

Isaac is fascinated. “I’ve never met an emissary before. What is he?”

Erica clucks her tongue at him. “That’s a rude question, Isaac. He’s a druid.”

“You just answered his rude question. Don’t encourage him,” Derek says. “Is Deaton the one who figured out how to stop the Nogitsune?”

Scott takes offense. “What? No, that was all Stiles. But we always ask Deaton first.”

“Like it does any good,” Allison mutters under her breath.

“So shouldn’t we be asking Stiles?” Derek looks adorably confused. Erica pats him on the head.

Lydia waves a hand. “This is how we do things around here. We ask Deaton, he’ll give a cryptic answer or no answer at all, and Stiles and I will research the problem until we have some semblance of what’s going on.”

“You forgot about the part where we make plans that inevitably fall through and only get by on the skin of our teeth,” Allison points out.

Lydia scoffs. “Beggars can’t be choosers, Allison. They came to us.”

“Is anyone else starting to seriously regret this decision?” Erica asks.

Isaac raises his hand.

 

* * *

 

Peter watches as the guild exits the hall en masse, getting into their respective cars and driving towards town. He takes the opportunity to stretch out the kinks in his neck from sitting for so long.

The time limit Peter had been given to complete this task was more generous than some of Kate’s earlier works, when she had still been testing his strength and ingenuity. So he knew he could kill eleven people in 72 hours. The problem is the lack of _finesse_ such a feat would take.

Just his luck to be stuck with someone like Kate Argent, whose plebian butcher ways will never appreciate the delicate sensibilities of a well-executed plan. Why, Peter’s only been observing this guild for less than 12 hours and already he can see they deserve better than a simple picking off its members one by one.

But alas, such higher brain power is lost on Kate and he, her unfortunate foot soldier trapped in someone else’s crusade, has no say. Not that much different from being Talia’s left hand man really, although she at least put up the pretense of listening to his ideas.

This guild has a werewolf as its leader, which is quite unusual. Peter has killed fellow werewolves before, all of them from illegal biting. Biting someone legally outside of a werewolf family required going through miles of paperwork and red tape to get approval from the Werecreature Council. Werecreatures are an incredibly self-policing bunch. That doesn’t stop illegal bites from happening of course, particularly from rogue Alphas and Alphas easily swayed by human miseries.

Many a regular human from outside the pack had come to Talia begging for the bite to cure their terminal illness. Nevermind the bite might kill them, they were dead anyway. And couldn’t they save them, just this once? Talia had denied every single request.

Needless to say, humans considered werecreatures the coldest of the supernatural creatures. Peter would say only about ¼ of those bitten survive. And of those that do survive, there’s a chance their illness or some form of it could return at some point. The humans born into a werewolf pack only took the bite if they were absolutely determined and even then all Alphas are very aware of the risk involved.

In his own ex-pack, his second cousin had a pretty bad case of Crohn’s disease and begged for the bite to end the pain. Talia had deliberated for three days before coming to a decision. She ended up biting him. He lived. Seven weeks later, his chronic pain returned, though in a slightly lesser form. Peter had never asked him if it was worth it.

Magic of any kind is not a cure-all despite human assumptions. In fact, it often causes more trouble than it’s worth. Just look at Peter.

Here he is, a grown man, crouching in some bushes outside a rickety guild hall at ass o’clock at night. He has to stand fifty feet from the hall or risk setting off the wards. Whoever set them up has knowledge of a werewolf’s smell radius. Forty feet when not actively hunting for something, a mile when tracking a specific scent.

But he can’t stall for much longer. After scouting the members, he has no more excuses and must act before he’s forced to act. He had tried resisting for as long as possible before, on one of the very first jobs Kate had sent him on. It did not end well.

He mentally tallies up the guild and guild-adjacent members in his head. Going after the parents first would be the most likely option. Logistically, though, since they interact with the regular human population much more than the guild, they will be Peter’s last choice. Once he’s killed their children, some time off work should be in order and some degree of isolation should seep in, enough for Peter to strike unobtrusively.

Moreover, every single one of their houses is _covered_ in wards. Impressive ones too. Peter had thrown a stick at one and it went through just fine. But when he stuck the very tip of his finger on it, it came back a charred black smudge of skin. Whoever set these up isn’t messing around. And they sort of remind Peter of an impossible person who did impossible things.

The guild-adjacents are tough in their own right. They count a former hunter, a sheriff, and a kitsune among their members. Even the supposed weakest links have impressive skills. Peter has seen the nurse, Melissa McCall, packing heat on more than one occasion, in a way that suggests she will draw her weapon if anyone so much as looks at her funny.

Peter knows where to start. With Derek. Oh yes, seeing his nephew with this particular guild had been a surprise. And he brought three elemental mages with him, which is a definite problem. Derek will be the easiest to take out. Simply show his face, say he wants to talk, and lead him to a deserted clearing. A simple snap of the neck. He probably wouldn’t even fight back. Dispose of the body and on to the next target.

The kitsune who hasn’t awakened her powers will be next. Her parent’s house is the farthest from the guild hall and she drives there every Saturday night. Herd a deer her way, instant car accident. Make sure she’s actually dead and move on.

To the water mage, maybe. He is easily intimidated by the smallest of aggressive gestures. Catch him alone, manhandle him a bit, and the boy would crumble like putty in his hands.

He would say the werewolf next, but the problem is the boy has such fierce protectors. They must be alert to any hint of a threat, they guard him so vigorously.

Peter wonders if Kate tipped them off. Peter has no illusions of Kate’s intentions. Each task she set for him gets harder and harder. No doubt she doesn’t like having supernatural creatures doing her dirty work for so long. She wants him gone.

Peter has also heard joking mentions of “True Alphaness” from various members of the guild. Whether or not this is actually true remains to be seen. Peter is certainly unimpressed. This werewolf trusts too easily. Maybe a call from Derek’s phone asking for his help with some pixies. “I only need one guy, no big deal.” Peter is fairly confident he can imitate Derek’s voice.

The hunter. The one he couldn’t kill. Peter had been dealing with hunters for six years now. He knows all of their tactics and moves, to the point where he would often sneak in on Kate’s training practice sessions and call out their movements just before they made them. They are straightforward fighters, ironically similar to werewolves in that way. The long-range weapons will be a challenge, but Peter is confident he can get close enough to subdue and capture her before she can turn her vast collection of weapons on him. The sheer volume is incredible.

Then, the fire mage. Peter has observed him taking long walks in the woods, even with the guild on high alert. Blitz attack from his weak side, slit his throat and on to the next.

The last three will be the hardest as they are, each in their own way, the opponents best suited to take on someone like Peter. The banshee is smart, a genius really, and ruthless. The best time to take her out would be during her screams. But Peter has no way of knowing the time lapse between a death and a scream. He would have to listen for it periodically, then try to attack while she is still screaming. With earplugs, naturally. A simple fatal swipe of claws and it would be all over.

The earth mage is the strongest mage Peter has ever seen. Her magic never falters. When she summons her weapon, it is very close to instantaneous. Since mages require visualization for their magic to manifest, a mage who can fully summon their weapon in a few seconds is regarded as expert-level. These few seconds are normally the best time to attack a mage. But Peter cannot move in the short time it takes for the girl to summon her weapon. So he has to weaken her resolve. He’ll save the head of her boyfriend and throw it at her from a safe distance. She’ll be too stunned to properly visualize her weapon and he’ll be able to attack. Slit her throat in the opening it provides. Done.

And the last. Peter supposes he should have been more shocked that the boy who defeated the Nogitsune would be part of this guild. It made a strange kind of karmic sense, how he would destroy the one thing that had given him the briefest flare of hope. Can Peter deal the killing blow? Even if he manages to get past the boy’s formidable defenses and frankly paranoid planning of every worst case scenario, there’s something about him.

And isn’t that messed up? He relates to a Nogitsune-possessed boy better than he ever related to his own family or the general population. Peter wonders if the Nogitsune made the boy watch what it did with his body, powerless to stop it. Or if he eventually gave in like Peter, who had resisted until he couldn’t anymore, and lost himself in every command Kate had given him, figuring he’d at least earn his own guilt this way.

Had the boy felt it creeping up on him in the dead of night, the accumulated weight of all his sins crushing his chest until he couldn’t breathe, until he doesn’t want to breathe anymore? Had he felt betrayed by his body as well as his mind when his heart kept beating and his blood kept pumping despite his best efforts to the contrary? Had he ever reveled in the darkness consuming him, just a little, because now it matched what he had thought about himself all along?

When he comes right down to it, Peter isn’t sure what he’ll do with this boy so similar and yet so different from him. The least he can do is meet the boy on a level playing field. No pretenses, no ace in the hole, just him and the boy. And their sins like elephants on their backs.

 

* * *

 

It’s the smell that does it. Slightly medicinal, with the sharp sting of alcohol and the underlying stink of animals in distress. One moment she’s standing in the room, listening to Derek ask the druid for help, the next she’s sitting on the floor, crying as her mother stands over her.

“This will make you feel better, child.” Her mother hands her a potion stinking of acai berries. Erica takes it because she longs to be a good girl. “Drink that up and you’ll be just fine.”

She drinks it. She spends three days vomiting it back up.

Her mother tries everything she can think of, everything the healer recommends. Black cohosh stems, milk thistle seeds, cat’s claw bark, all go into potions activated with her mother’s magic.

The feverfew leaves are the worst. She gets a headache so bad her vision is narrowed down to a single point of light that alternates glowing red, black, and yellow. She sits in her room with the curtains drawn, feeling the energy drain from her body little by little until she’s nothing but a husk of a girl. And still, the seizures continue. Little ones here and there, but big ones too, ones that leave her on the floor with a tongue on fire and a heart full of shame.

Her mother doesn’t understand. “It’s definitely epilepsy,” the healer says. “Human illnesses do sometimes show up in the supernatural population, although it is quite rare. The seizures don’t appear to cause her any undue harm, and I see you already gave her a protective amulet, so she’ll be safe from any falls,” he gestures to the simple locket around Erica’s neck. “Have you considered consulting a human doctor?”

Her mother’s eyes shutter and Erica knows the healer’s lost the battle he never knew he was fighting. “Those bloodsuckers can’t do anything. I won’t let them anywhere near my daughter.”

“Mrs. Reyes, please, I know your guild prefers the old ways, but humans and mages interact quite frequently now, and our medicine has developed alongside theirs for many years, it’s a very collaborative process-”

Her mother’s hand tightens around hers. “I should’ve known better than to come to you, Healer Caskins. Consider yourself fired. We’ll find someone who can help cure my girl. Come along, Erica.”

Erica goes, but not before seeing the pitying look the healer sends her way. She thinks she hates that the most.

Over the years, her mother consults with the new healer, cycling through treatment after treatment, but none work.

Her magic manifests early, and the first wave of it knocks her mother and father flat in the next room. When it settles, Erica feels it surrounding her like a suit of armor and she thinks, _I can live with seizures if I get to have this_. Her magic doesn’t think any less of her. If anything, it feels more powerful than even her mother’s.

“What a waste,” she hears her father muttering furiously as he scrubs up the pee from her latest episode. “What a goddamn waste.”

Erica, her magic seething and burning under her skin, begins her training and is surprised at how easily it comes to her. The elders refuse to touch her, to guide her small body into the fighting positions her guild is known for, but Erica watches from the sidelines and listens as they coach the untainted children. The trees surrounding her home become her sparring partners, the demons and ghosts inside her mind make handy enemies, and she makes quick work of them. The fact that they come back the next day doesn’t worry her. One day she’ll be strong enough to defeat them.

For one hour each day, she meditates. This is the most important part of becoming a mage, she knows. Mages must begin to meditate as soon as their magic manifests, gradually increasing the time each day, until they can form a sold weapon with their magic. Erica looks through endless pictures of weapons until one catches her eye.

It’s a flail, the description says. Erica feels a strange kinship with the deadly-looking spikes, how no one would want to touch them. Just like no one will touch her. At her core, where she imagines her magic is stored, she feels a thrum of approval. She won’t find out until much later how unusual it is that she can feel her magic like that.

And diamond for the material, something no one in her guild has been able to manifest. Joy swoops through her, leaving her fingertips and toes tingling.

It doesn’t last. The very next day, she falls to the ground, the shield activating and sparing her any harm, and when she comes to the first thing she sees are her parent’s strained faces and she knows this is the last straw.

There are no computers in the guild hall, but there is a public library in town. She begs to go along on a supply run and slips away to the library with no problem. Erica goes to an all mage school, but technology has invaded even the small corner of the world that despises it, so they have exactly one computer. It’s a dinosaur of a thing, and they take turns using it during recess.

She worries she won’t be able to work the computer, but the basic controls are the same. She marvels at the speed of the internet. Erica hesitates over the keyboard as the cursor blinks on Google’s search bar. She decides on typing in seizures cure and anxiously waits the 0.37 seconds it takes for the answers to pop up.

“Drugs do not cure epilepsy,” the first result says, and Erica’s heart sinks. “About 80% of people with epilepsy have their seizures controlled by medication.”

Erica knows 80% is barely a B in school, yet she cannot stop the hope beginning to blossom in her chest.

Erica is fourteen and angry. The prescription she worked so hard to get crumples in her hand as she glares at the pharmacist with all her might. “Saying ‘that’ll be $100’ in that perky voice really pisses me off. Do I look like I have that kind of money?” She can feel the impatience of those in line behind her, but it’s nothing compared to the sweet song of righteous indignation building within her.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. If you had insurance, maybe…” But of course Erica doesn’t have insurance. She doesn’t have anything except her magic.

“Fuck this,” she snarls, chucking the balled-up paper in her hand at the pharmacist’s head, who ducks calmly without changing the carefully arranged apologetic expression on her face. Probably practices it in front of a mirror, Erica seethes.

Well, there are other ways. Seedy ways. It’s desperation that drives Erica to dusty old forums buried beneath layers of clicks. There she finds salvation. A man giving away his old meds happens to live only two bus stops away. Erica scrawls down his address and makes her way there.

The man smiles at her kindly when he hands her the meds. He has dark circles under his eyes and his bathrobe is ratty and worn, but when he gives Erica those pills he might as well be Jesus. “Thank you,” she breathes, knowing she can never express the extent of her gratitude.

The man seems to understand though, if the widening of his smile is any indication. “You be careful now, you hear? We epileptics are real good at knowing our bodies, but sometimes our hard heads get in the way.” He raps on his helmet with his knuckles. Someone has painted a bright blue and green peacock on it. Erica likes his style.

She clutches the meds to her chest and just like that, she’s found a lifeline.

Keppra doesn’t stop the seizures and it gives her a bright red rash down the length of her side, which alternates between itching and burning. She peruses the forums and finds another medicine dispenser.

Topamax stops the seizures for weeks, and Erica finally thinks she’s found the right one. Or at least that’s what she tells herself when she starts mixing up words. When she calls her mother Maria instead of mom she knows it’s time to switch.

Depakote is the worst. She gains twenty pounds and can’t sleep at night because she shakes so badly. In the morning, there’s hair on her pillow.

And so it goes. Medication after medication, and none of them last. She’s in the 20% who won’t be able to control the seizures with medication. 20% is a solid F. 20% is less than an F. It’s closer to a Z.

“Regular human medications do not work on magical humans,” her doctor says apologetically. Erica wishes everyone would stuff their apologies where the sun don’t shine. “And magical medicine has no answer for neurological problems at this point. Their knowledge of the brain is no more developed than ours.”

The doctor leans forward and Erica knows he’s about to ask for something. All men look the same when asking for things. “Speaking of, we would love it if you participated in a clinical trial about supernatural creatures afflicted with human diseases. With your parent’s permission, of course. If you help us, you can prevent future generations from having the same problems.”

Erica doesn’t give a fuck about future generations. She smiles sweetly at the doctor, who looks thrilled, right before she summons her weapon and points it threateningly at his groin. His pale complexion is reflected beautifully in the hard sheen of the diamond flail. He edges out of the room, yelling for security. Erica exits out the fire door, and the shrill alarms behind her are an epic soundtrack to her triumph.

“Erica? Erica!” Something snaps in her face, and she’s on the verge of summoning her weapon when Isaac’s worried face swims into view.

“Snap in my face again and see what happens,” she says out of reflex. Isaac’s body slumps in relief.

Boyd gives her a discreet nudge. “Don’t do that,” she hisses. He raises an eyebrow at her tone before nodding to where the vet is pontificating about something or other.

She takes a deep breath, and her magic presses to be let out in response to her earlier distress. She calms it down, control over it coming easily to her as always. “Here,” Boyd says quietly, and offers her his wrist.

“What are you doi-” She catches a whiff of his cologne, subtle and earthy. It doesn’t overpower the alcohol smell completely, but it’s enough for now.

 

* * *

 

“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for Peter,” Deaton says. Stiles frowns at what he doesn’t say, namely concerning the naked regret on the vet’s face visible for half a second when Derek told him about his uncle.

“He disappeared right after the…thing with Kate. I don’t want him to be the one to pay for my actions.” Such a burly looking man should not be so capable of sounding so earnest.

Deaton doesn’t say anything, and Stiles sees Derek’s hands start to curl into fists. He sympathizes with his frustration—Deaton is annoying even on his best days—but decides to cut in before things can escalate. “I saw him, I think,” he says. “About yea high, smirky, and total creeper, right?”

Derek tries to keep a straight face. His twitching jaw gives him away. “That sounds about right. Peter never cared much for social graces. He used to say they slowed him down. It drove mom, I mean Alpha Hale, nuts.”

If Deaton believed in shrugs, Stiles is sure he’d be giving one now. As it is he simply says, “I cannot help you. What happened to Peter is irreversible.”

“So something did happen to him?” Derek’s full attention is focused on Deaton like a laser beam.

“As I said, I can’t help you,” he says in clear dismissal. Stiles wonders if he imagined the slight emphasis on the word I.

When they get back to the guild hall, Derek punches a tree and nearly splits it in half. His friends watch with solemn faces. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Stiles says, keeping a good five foot distance between him and the angry werewolf. “Easy there, buddy. Deaton was actually much more forthcoming today than he usually is.”

Derek paces erratically back and forth. “He was a lot different when I was little. The Deaton I knew would have helped me in a second. I guess it’s because I’m not part of the pack anymore.”

“At least we know your suspicions are correct. Something did happen to Peter,” Kira pipes up. God bless her dear sweet optimist heart, Stiles thinks as Derek finally stops pacing, flopping to the ground bonelessly instead.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s something at least.”

Stiles exchanges a look with Allison. She gives a very slight nod. Scott had ceded all tactical decisions to him and Allison a long time ago. Lydia’s job is to try to poke holes in their plans. The way she’s staring intently at Derek as if solving a difficult puzzle is enough confirmation for Stiles.

“There have been rumors,” Stiles begins haltingly. “About Argent sightings in the area. Of the Kate and Gerard variety.”

Derek’s cold eyes give Stiles pause. Allison picks up the slack. “Given the timing between Kate’s dalliance with you and Peter‘s disappearance, they most likely have something to do with it. Stiles saw Peter in the area, so…” she trails off.

“So, what, they have some kind of hold on Peter?” It’s hard to imagine the cool, confident werewolf Stiles saw being blackmailed, and one glance at Derek tells him he feels the same. But Stiles is also the sheriff’s son, and he knows people live and die by secrets.

“Maybe,” Lydia says, and the way she purses her lips means she’s thinking it’s something else.

Derek looks like he’s swallowed a lemon. “Looks like I’ll have to bite the bullet and talk to Alpha Hale. She might be able to help figure out what they have over Peter. And the way Deaton was acting made me think she has something to do with it.”

“Good luck with that, dude.” Their own meeting with Alpha Hale had not gone over well.

“Well, you’re welcome to crash here tonight, if you want. We should have some sleeping bags somewhere…” Scott trails off meaningfully.

The deep wrinkle between Derek’s brows goes subterranean. “We couldn’t impose.”

“Nonsense,” Allison says. “We’re all in this together now.”

The words hang heavy in the air for a second, suspended around them like a net. And they are the little fishies caught inside.

 

* * *

 

As Scott lies in bed that night, listening to Stiles’ loud-mouthed breathing from the next room, Lydia’s little puffs of air she insists are not snores, Kira’s restless shifting in her bed, the light sleeping of the new guests, and Allison’s steady heartbeat right next to him, he catalogues the things they’ll have to do tomorrow.

Derek is going to see Alpha Hale first thing in the morning. Allison wants to see the battle capabilities of the mages, and they had agreed to a spar with surprisingly little fuss. Stiles and Lydia are going to bury themselves in obscure tomes and shady internet sites to try to figure out what happened to Peter. And he and Kira are going to work together to try to draw out her thunder kitsune potential, something they had been working on ever since she joined the guild. She responds best to Scott’s gentle encouragement rather than Allison’s drill sergeant shouting, Lydia’s condescension, and Stiles’ irritation.

Please, he prays silently, curling his arms tighter around Allison. Please let us make it out of this okay. No dying, no serious injuries. Let there be a way to resolve this without killing. His wolf lets out a disgruntled bark, but Scott ignores it with his usual ease. Giving into the wolf means giving up his humanity. He can’t let that happen no matter what.

Besides, he doesn’t need to be a werewolf to know that killing is wrong. This is his last thought before he drifts off to sleep.

_Killing is wrong_.

“Position?”

“About twenty miles out. I have to set up a few things, then I should be in town by 1300 hours.”

“Excellent. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point. And Kate?”

“Yes, father?”

“Make me proud.”

_Killing is wrong_.

Peter listens to the alpha’s breathing taper off into true sleep. He shifts uncomfortably in his makeshift shelter. Why can’t the people Kate wants him to kill live close to a five-star luxury hotel? That isn’t asking too much, is it? He checks his watch. Twelve hours down, sixty to go. He’ll have to make his first move tomorrow.

_Killing is wrong_.

The wolf does not understand why his human squishy never talks to him. The wolf knows all sorts of amazing things. Like how to catch rabbits and the trees with the best bark for scratching those infuriating itches on his back. The wolf would never admit it, but he gets lonely sometimes. His human squishy only calls on him for emergencies, never for fun.

The wolf rests his head on his paws and settles down to sleep. He dreams of running in the moonlit woods with his pack (human squishy calls it a guild, but the wolf isn’t stupid: it’s a pack), their laughter tickling his ears, and the wind rushing through his fur. And the blood of their enemies leading the way, their bodies strewn like signposts in the underbrush.


End file.
